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Hppletons’ 
Gown anb Country 
Xibrarp 

No. 285 


THE SEAFARERS 


By J. BLOUNDELLE-BURTON. 


Each, i2mo, cloth, $1.00 ; paper, 50 cents. 


A Bitter Heritage. 

“ Mr. Bloundelle-Burton is one of the most successful 
of the purveyors of historical romance who have started up 
in the wake of Stanley Weyman and Conan Doyle. He 
has a keen eye for the picturesque, a happy instinct for a 
dramatic (or more generally a melodramatic) situation, and 
he is apt and careful in his historic paraphernalia. He 
usually succeeds, therefore, in producing an effective 
story.” — Charleston News and Courier. 

Fortune’s my Foe. 

“ The story moves briskly, and there is plenty of dra- 
matic action.” — Philadelphia Telegraph. 

The Clash of Arms. 

“ Well written, and the interest is sustained from the 
beginning to the end of the tale.” — Brooklyn Eagle. 

“Vividness of detail and rare descriptive power give 
the story life and excitement. ” — Boston Herald. 

Denounced. 

“A story of the critical times of the vagrant and ambi- 
tious Charles I, it is so replete with incident and realistic 
happenings that one seems translated to the very scenes 
and days of that troublous era in English history.” — Boston 
Courier. 

The Scourge of God. 

“ The story is one of the best in style, construction, in- 
formation, and graphic power, that have been written in 
recent years.” — Dial, Chicago. 

In the Day of Adversity. 

“ Mr. Burton’s creative skill is of the kind which must 
fascinate those who revel in the narratives of Stevenson, 
Rider Haggard, and Stanley Weyman. Even the author 
of ‘A Gentleman of France’ has not surpassed the writer 
of ‘ In the Day of Adversity ’ in the moving interest of his 
tale.” — St. James's Gazette. 


D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 


THE SEAFARERS 


A MODERN ROMANCE 


BY 


JOHN BLOUNDELLE-BURTON 

AUTHOR OF 

THE SCOURGE OF GOD, THE CLASH OF ARMS, 
DENOUNCED, IN THE DAY OF ADVERSITY, 
fortune’s MY FOE, ETC. 


“ Love and death have their fatalities, 
And strike home one time or other” 

Farquhar 



NEW 

D. APPLETON 


YORK 

AND COMPANY 


1900 




TWO COPIES HECEIVE ^ 1 S< *^ 


FIRST COPY, 


Library of Congrot^ 
Office o f thy 

MAY ] 7 1900 

Weglotor of Copyright «, 

/o SIS' 2 



Copyright, 1900, 

By JOHN BLOUNDELLE-BURTON. 






.<4 // rights reserved. 


Copyright, 1899, by D. Appleton and Company. 


, v . \ 

CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER 

I. — “ Sweeter than blue-eyed violets, or 

THE DAMASK ROSE ” . . 

II. — Stephen Charke 

III. — “ Let those love now who never loved 

BEFORE ” 

IV. — Portsmouth en f£te 

V. — “ So, FAREWELL HOPE ” 

VI. — “ And bend the gallant mast, my boys ” 

VII. — “ An ocean waif ” 

VIII. — “His name is — what?" . 

IX. — Rescued from the dhow . 

X. — The coming terror 

XI. — The terror increases . 

XII. — Stricken ! 

XIII. — “Spare her! spare her!” 

XIV. — More victims 

XV. — “ A LIGHT FROM THE PAST ”... 

XVI. — Man overboard ! 

XVII. — Farewell, my rival ! 

XVIII. — “ She will never know ” . 

XIX. — “ I ALMOST DREADED THIS MAN ONCE ” 

XX. — “ I DO BELIEVE YOU ” 

XXI. — Washed ashore 

XXII. — “ A SAILOR’S KNIFE ” 

XXIII. — “The tiger did that!” . . . . 

XXIV.— Beaten ! defeated ! 

XXV. — Saved ! 

XXVI.— “ I LOVE YOU— NOW ” 


PAGE 

I 

12 

24 

36 

48 

60 

72 

83 

94 
105 
118 
130 
142 
154 
167 
179 
191 *• 
204 

215 

227 

239 

250 

262 

274 

286 

299 


v 


























































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THE SEAFARERS. 


CHAPTER I. 

“ SWEETER THAN BLUE-EYED VIOLETS, 

OR THE DAMASK ROSE.” 

That Bella Waldron should have felt sad 
and her night’s rest have been disturbed in 
consequence, was, in the circumstances, most 
natural. For one can not suppose that any 
young girl leaves her home, her mother, 
and her country without much grief and 
perturbation, without tears and sorrow and 
heavy sighs, as well as tremulous fears that 
she may never return to or see them again. 
And that is what Bella was about to do 
when this particular night should have come 
to an end. She was about to traverse not 
one ocean, but two; to pass from a life that, 
if not luxurious, was at least comfortable to 
another which, if more brilliant, would un- 


2 


THE SEAFARERS. 


doubtedly be strange, and consequently not 
easily to be adopted at first — in fact, to go 
from one side of the world to the other. 

Yet, all the same, it was singular that, 
between her intervals of weeping and sob- 
bing, and when she had at last cried herself 
to sleep, she should have been tormented 
with such frightful dreams as those which 
came to her — dreams of horror that, in their 
weirdness, became almost ludicrous, or would 
have been ludicrous to those who, knowing 
of them, did not happen to be experiencing 
them. Thus — the idea of a crocodile regard- 
ing one with a glittering eye from its ambush 
in the sand seems, for some reasons, in our 
waking moments to conjure up a comical 
sense of terror; perhaps because of the “ glit- 
tering eye,” yet there was nothing ludicrous 
about such a dream to the mind of Bella as 
she awoke with a shriek from her sleep after 
the vision of the creature’s eye had had mo- 
mentary existence in the cells of her brain. 
And even when she was thoroughly awakened 
and knew that she had only been suffering 
from a bad dream, she still shuddered at the 
recollection and muttered: “ It seemed as if 


SWEETER THAN BLUE-EYED VIOLETS.’ 


it was creeping towards me to seize me with 
its horrid jaws. Oh! it was dreadful.” 

Then she slept again — only, however, to 
dream of other things. Of a desolate shore 
at first, with upon it a misty creature waving 
its hands mournfully above its head, those 
hands being enveloped in some gauzy mate- 
rial so that the figure appeared more like a 
skirt dancer than aught else: then of two 
lions fighting savagely — and then of a vast 
black cave with an opening as high as St. 
Paul’s, and as wide as a railway terminus is 
long, against which, armed with a spear and 
protected with a buckler, she seemed to stand 
trembling. Trembling, too, because she 
could not see one yard into the deep and 
penetrating darkness before her and in which, 
as she peered furtively and with horror, she 
seemed to see things — forms half animal and 
half human, crawling, revolving — creeping 
about! And, again, she awoke with a 
start. 

But by now the room was light with the 
gray mournful glimmer of the approaching 
dawn, so light that she could see her wicker 
basket trunks in their American cloth wrap- 


4 


THE SEAFARERS. 


pers standing by the wall, with the lids open 
against it: soon, too, she heard the sparrows 
twittering outside, as well as the congenial 
suburban sounds, such as the newspaper boys 
shrieking hideously to one another and the 
milkman uttering piercing yells, and — though 
it was her last day in England — she was glad 
to spring out of bed and know herself to be 
once more a unit in the actual world instead 
of a wanderer in a world of dreams. 

“ I wish,” the girl muttered to herself, 
standing by the window and drawing up the 
blind half way, whereby she was enabled to 
see that the gray dawn of a May morning 
gave promise of a warm day later on, “ that, 
if I were to have such bad dreams at all, I 
might have been spared them on the very day 
of my departure for the other side of the 
globe. I am not superstitious — yet — yet — 
well! I shall think of this dream, I know, for 
many a day to come.” 

Then she slipped on her dressing-gown, 
thrust her pretty little white feet into some 
warm felt bath slippers, and opening her 
door quietly because it was still early and she 
did not wish to awaken those in the house 


SWEETER THAN BLUE-EYED VIOLETS.” 5 

who might be asleep, she went across the pas- 
sage to her mother’s room. 

Yet ere she does so, let us regard this 
young girl whose story and adventure we are 
now to follow, this girl whose dreams of 
leering crocodiles and dark mystic caves with 
hideous creatures gyrating in them, will, as 
we shall see, be far outnumbered and out- 
shone by the actual realities that she will ex- 
perience in her passage across the world. 
For it had been resolved on by Fate, or Provi- 
dence, or Destiny, or whatever one should 
term that wizard power which controls our 
worldly existence, that to Bella Waldron were 
to come experiences, strange, horrible, and 
fantastic, such as the last decade of our ex- 
piring century rarely assaults men with, and 
women hardly ever. 

Standing there, in the now clear light of 
the morning, her long dressing-gown en- 
shrouding her tall, shapely and svelte figure, 
while her masses of hair — a warm brown with 
golden gleams in it, such as has the ripening 
corn — fell below her shoulders, one would 
have declared at once that she was beautiful. 
Beautiful, also, by the gift of clear hazel-blue 


6 


THE SEAFARERS. 


eyes — eyes, too, that were pure and innocent 
in their glance; beautiful as well, with her 
softly rounded face, her rich red lips — the up- 
per one divinely short — and also by her col- 
ouring. If, too, one applies to her the lines 
of that old poet, dead and gone two hundred 
years ago, the words describing Gloriana: 

“ More fair than the red morning’s dawn, 

Sweeter than pearly dews that scent the lawn, 
Than blue-eyed violets, or the damask rose 
Where in her hottest fragrance she glows, 

And the cool West her wafted odours blows.” 

Bella Waldron may be considered as depicted. 

“ Mother,” she said, going in now to the 
room where that poor lady had herself passed 
a sad and tearful night bemoaning the fact 
that soon — in a few hours, indeed, now, be- 
cause the fateful day had come — her child was 
to be torn from her. 

“ Oh! mother. It is to-day. To-day! 
Oh! my darling, how can I part from you? ” 
And then folding the other in her arms as she 
sat on the bedside, the two women wept to- 
gether. 

f< Yet,” said Mrs. Waldron, to whom ad- 
vancing years had brought the power of philo- 


“SWEETER THAN BLUE-EYED VIOLETS.” y 

sophic resignation, if not the thorough 
strength to overcome that which rendered 
her unhappy, “ yet, Bella, my dearest, it is so 
much for you. Such a position, such a future. 
Oh! think of it. A position you could 
scarcely ever have hoped to obtain. And the 
love, my child. The love. Think how Gil- 
bert loves you and you love him. For you 
do love him, Bella. Of all men he is the one 
for you.” 

“ With my whole heart and soul I love 
him,” her daughter answered. “ Mother, if 
I had never met him I do not believe I could 
have ever loved any other man. Ah! I am 
glad Juliet called Romeo the god of her idola- 
try! It has taught me how to think of 
Gilbert.” 

“ And the position, Bella. The position, 
think of that. In our circumstances, even 
though you come of a good stock, are de- 
scended from ladies and gentlemen on both 
sides from far-off years, you could never have 
hoped to make such a match.” 

“ The position is nothing to me, mother. 
I love Gilbert, madly. I long to be his wife. 
Why should I think of the position? ” 


8 


THE SEAFARERS. 


“ Every woman must think of it, child. 
When you are as old — and worn — as I am, 
you — you will teach your own children to 
think of it. It is everything to be the wife 
of a gentleman, better still the wife of a man 
of rank. Everything! Short of being the 
wife of a distinguished man, one whose name 
is on everybody’s tongue, there is no other 
position so good. And, even then, that dis- 
tinguished man may not be a gentleman as 
well. That would be dreadful. Yet, as it is, 
your husband will be both. Think, Bella! 
He is sure to become a nobleman, and he may 
become the most renowned admiral in the 
Navy.” 

“ You dear old mother! But I love Gil- 
bert because he is Gilbert. Otherwise neither 
the nobility which is certain, nor the renown 
which is prospective, would take me across the 
world to him. Do you think I would go to 
Bombay to marry the heir to a title or a pos- 
sible admiral if I did not love him? ” 

“ Heaven forbid! ” Mrs. Waldron replied, 
as she sat up in her bed and smoothed her hair. 
“ Heaven forbid! Yet,” she murmured, per- 
haps a little weakly for a lady who had just 


“SWEETER THAN BLUE-EYED VIOLETS.” g 

delivered herself of such admirable sentiments, 
“ yet, I do honestly think, darling, that the 
love you bear each other — yes! above all, the 
love — and the position — I must think of the 
position, Bella — and the certainty of a bril- 
liant future for you, reconcile me a little to 
parting with you. Some day, when you are 
a mother, you will understand me.” 

“ I understand you now, darling. Yet — 
yet — oh! ” and now she sobbed on her moth- 
er’s shoulder; “ yet to think of our being part- 
ed for so long, for three years! Gilbert must 
remain on the station for that length of time.” 

Now it is certain that Mrs. Waldron was 
sobbing too, but, because there was some- 
thing of the Spartan mother, something, too, 
of Sempronia, mother of the Gracchi, about 
her, she calmed her sobs. For she, also, had 
once been ruthlessly torn by an all-conquer- 
ing lover, who would take no denial, from her 
parents’ arms. Yet that lover had no such 
proud future to offer her as the Gilbert of 
whom they spoke had to offer his beloved 
Arabella; for her there had been nothing to 
flavour her existence except the glorious spice 
tasted by almost all of us, of loving and of be- 


IO 


THE SEAFARERS. 


ing loved. And now — now that she was what 
she called old — which was not the case, since 
she was still short of her forty-fifth year — now 
she knew, and knowing, said so, that love 
when accompanied by brilliant prospects and 
an assured future was the sweetest of all loves. 

“Your father,” said Mrs. Waldron, “re- 
mained on his station, the Pacific, for seven 
years, and we were separated all that time. 
He there, I here in London. And in lodg- 
ings, Bella — oh I those lodgings and that 
cooking! — you remember, darling? You 
must remember the lodgings and the cooking, 
child as you were. And he was not a future 
peer, though he did once think he might be- 
come an admiral.” 

“ Forgive me, darling,” Bella said, kissing 
her mother again and again. “ I will not re- 
pine any more. I ought not to, I know. 
For is not my Gilbert the handsomest, brav- 
est sailor that ever wore the Queen’s uniform? 
And it won’t be so long after all. Only — 
only — I do wish there wasn’t that awful jour- 
ney. Oh! if there were only a bridge,” and 
for the first time she smiled, “ or a railway,” 
she added. ^ 


“SWEETER THAN BLUE-EYED VIOLETS.” u 

“ I am sure, Bella,” her mother said, for- 
getting how she would feel that evening when 
her child was gone, and neither the bright 
voice nor brisk footsteps would be heard any 
more in the house, “ I am sure you cannot 
complain of the manner in which you are go- 
ing out. The vessel may not be as com- 
fortable as they say the great liners are, but 
at least your uncle is the captain, and it is his 
own ship. And that cabin he showed us 
yesterday when we went down to Gravesend 
is far better than anything you could get in 
any line, even in the best. I had one once, 
when I went out to join your father at Hali- 
fax, in which there was nowhere but the 
pockets of my clothes to keep things in, while 
the other lady above me could open the scut- 
tle as she lay in her berth. And your cabin is 
as big as a dining-room, with a sofa.” 

“You dear, darling mother,” Bella ex- 
claimed. “ You are an angel to comfort me 
thus, when I know all the time that your 
heart is as sad as mine. Oh ! if we had not to 
part!” And again the two women hugged 
and kissed each other. 


CHAPTER II. 


STEPHEN CHARKE. 

A year before this momentous day when 
Arabella Waldron was to set sail for India in 
her uncle’s full-rigged ship, the Emperor of 
the Moon, there had come to her that su- 
preme joy which is the most sweet experience 
of a young girl’s life. The man she was mad- 
ly in love with had asked her to be his wife 
and, so far as it was possible to forecast the 
future, it seemed that before them both 
there stretched a long vista of happy years to 
be spent together, or as nearly together as 
a sailor and his wife can pass the greater part 
of their life. Yet, who can foretell the future 
— even so much as what to-morrow may bring 
forth! To-day we are here, to-morrow we are 
gone. A bicycle accident has done for us, or 
we have caught a fever or pneumonia — and 
we are no more. How then was Bella to 

know that events would so shape themselves 
12 


STEPHEN CHARKE. 


13 


that, ere she had been a year engaged to her 
future husband, she would be on board the 
Emperor of the Moon bound for the other 
side of the world, and that, during her pas- 
sage in the good old ship, named after an 
ancient play which one of the late owners had 
witnessed a representation of in his boyhood, 
she would encounter such calamities and 
perils. But let us not anticipate. Rather, 
instead, describe who Bella was and how she 
came to love and to be loved; to be wooed 
and won. 

The English girl! The girl fairly tall, full 
of, brimming over with health, full, too, of a 
liking for all exercise which befits the dawning 
woman — for boating, riding, walking, cy- 
cling; not ashamed to acknowledge that she 
likes a good dance and that she has a good 
appetite for a ball supper, one who is, withal, 
not a fool! — where in all the world can you 
find anything better than that? — better than 
the honest English girls who have been our 
mothers, are our wives and, please God! are 
what our daughters will be. 

Such a one was Bella Waldron. She 
could take a scull and pull it, too, as well as 


14 


THE SEAFARERS. 


any of her sisters whom you shall meet ’twixt 
Richmond and Windsor, could cycle thirty 
miles a day, eat a good dinner afterwards, and 
then go to a dance in the evening; and she 
thought nothing of walking from West Ken- 
sington to Piccadilly or Regent Street — with 
a glance at the Kensington High Street shops 
on the way! — especially when the “winter 
remnant sales ” were on and advertised daily 
in glowing terms! Of riding she knew little, 
because horse exercise is a more or less ex- 
pensive luxury, and also because an income 
of £600 a year does not allow much in the way 
of luxuries, even when there are only two 
people in the family and two servants (with an 
odd boy) kept. And that sum represented 
Mrs. Waldron’s income. 

Her mother had been a Miss Pooley, who 
had married the late Commander Waldron 
(retired with the brevet rank of captain), and 
to this lady there remained only one near rela- 
tive, besides Bella, at the time this veracious 
narrative opens. Now this gentleman merits 
a slight description, not only because he plays 
a considerable part in those adventures and 
tribulations which, later on, befell the girl, but 


STEPHEN CHARKE. 


15 


also because he occupied a position almost 
unique, and consequently conspicuous, in 
these modern days. Fifty years ago, nay, 
thirty, there would not have been anything 
peculiar in the career he followed, but now, 
with the twentieth century close upon us, 
that career was almost a singular one. 

He was a sea captain — a mercantile sea 
captain — possessing two ships of his own and 
always in command of one of them. That 
which he now commanded was this very 
Emperor of the Moon of which you have 
already heard, and of which, if you follow this 
narrative, you will hear a great deal more. 
The other was a brig called Sophy, which 
will not figure at all in these pages. Now, 
Captain Pooley — as he was called by every- 
body, though, of course, he had no right 
whatever to the distinctive appellation — had 
as a young man possessed an extraordinary 
love for the sea, so intense a love, indeed, that 
he, not being enabled to obtain a nomination 
for the Royal Navy, had induced his father to 
apprentice him to the merchant service. 
Later in life — one must be brief in these pre- 
liminary descriptions! — he had, after obtain- 


i6 


THE SEAFARERS. 


in g all his certificates, purchased, one after the 
other, with some little money he had inherit- 
ed, shares in first the one ship and then the 
second, and, eventually, by aid of savings and 
successful trading, had become the entire own- 
er of both. For the rest — to be again brief — 
he was a gentleman in manner and in feelings, 
while in his person he was a handsome, burly 
man, with the brightest of blue eyes, a vast 
shock of remarkably white hair above a good- 
looking, ruddy, sun-browned face; while he 
was also the possessor of a smile which ap- 
peared more often than not upon his good- 
humoured countenance, and helped to make 
him welcome wherever he went, both at home 
and abroad. He was, it should be added, a 
married man, but childless, and it was not un- 
usual for him to occasionally take his wife on 
the voyages he made for the purpose of trans- 
porting the goods which he sold in distant 
parts of the world, as well as for the purpose 
of purchasing other goods for sale at home. 
Otherwise, Mrs. Pooley remained at home in 
a pretty little villa at Blackheath, of which he 
owned a long lease. 

It was a year before the great joy of Bella’s 


STEPHEN CHARKE. 


17 


life came to her that the “ Captain ” returned 
from a voyage to Calcutta and, as was always 
the case with him, he went to Kensington to 
visit his sister and niece accompanied by his 
wife. These visits were invariably paid and, 
also, invariably returned by Mrs. and Miss 
Waldron, and were generally productive of a 
great deal of pleasure on each side. For Cap- 
tain Pooley — as we will continue to call him, 
was a kind-hearted, open-handed man, who 
loved his own kith and kin and cherished an 
old fashioned notion — still in existence, 
Heaven be praised! amongst many members 
of various classes of society — that one should 
do as much as lay in their power to make their 
relations happy. Wherefore, on this night he 
said as he took the head of Mrs. Waldron’s 
table — which she always insisted on his doing 
whenever he stayed with her — and while he 
carved a pair of most excellent fowls: 

“ So I think we shall have a good time of 
it all round, Mary ” (Mary being Mrs. Wal- 
dron’s name). “ To-night we go to the Ly- 
ceum, and to-morrow — well! to-morrow we’ll 
see. Then next week, Southsea. South- 
sea’s the place for us. Grand doings there 


i8 


THE SEAFARERS. 


next week, Bell. The visit of the foreign 
fleet will beat everything that has gone 
before.” 

“But the expense, George!” exclaimed 
his sister. “ The expense will be terrible. I 
saw in the paper that everything in Southsea 
would be at famine price.” 

The Captain pooh-poohed this remark, 
however, saying that an old friend of his, who 
had retired from the Royal Navy and was 
now living at that lively watering place, knew 
of a little furnished house which could be ob- 
tained reasonably if taken for the following 
week, as well as for the great’ one. And he 
clinched the remark by saying: “And I have 
told him to secure it.” 

There was therefore nothing further to be 
said on that score, Bella alone remarking that 
she had “ the best old uncle and aunt that 
ever lived.” 

“ There will be,” he continued, putting a 
slice of the breast upon her plate, probably as 
a reward for her observation, “ plenty to 
amuse Bella. There is a garden-party at 
Whale Island, another given by the General, 
and a ball given by the navy at the Town 


STEPHEN CHARKE. 


*9 


Hall. That’s the place for you, Bella. If 
you don’t find a husband there — and you a 
sailor’s daughter, too — well! ” 

But these remarks were hushed by his wife 
who told him not to tease the child, and by 
the beautiful rose blush which promptly 
rushed to his niece’s cheeks. Yet, all the 
same, Bella thought it very likely that she 
would have a very good time of it. 

They were playing “ Madame Sans-Gene ” 
at the Lyceum that evening — though Pooley 
rather wished it had been something by 
Shakespeare — and on the road to the thea- 
tre in the cab, he told them that he had taken 
another stall to which he had invited a young 
friend of his whom he had run against in 
town a day or two ago. 

“ And a very good fellow, too,” he said, 
“ besides being a first-rate sailor. And he 
has had a pretty hard struggle of it, owing to 
his being cursed with a cross-grained old fa- 
ther, who seemed to imagine his son was only 
brought into the world that he might sit upon 
him in every way. All the same, though, 
Stephen Charke got to windward of him 
somehow.” 


20 


THE SEAFARERS. 


“ Who is he, uncle? ” Bella asked, inter- 
ested in this story of the unknown person 
who was to make a fifth of their party, while 
her mother addressed a similar question to 
Mrs. Pooley. 

“ He is,” said the Captain, “ a young man 
of about thirty, who once went to sea with me 
in the Sophy. The son of an old retired 
officer who was years ago in a West Indian 
regiment. After petting and spoiling the 
boy, and — as Stephen Charke himself told me 
— almost treating him with deference because 
he happened to have been born his son, he 
afterwards endeavoured to exert a good deal 
of authority over him, which led to disagree- 
ables. He wanted the lad to go in for the 
army and Stephen wanted to go to sea.” 

“ And got his way, apparently,” said Bella. 

“ He did,” her uncle replied, “ by ab- 
solutely running away to sea — just like the 
hero in a boy’s book.” 

“ How lovely! ” the girl exclaimed. 

“Ha! Humph!” said Pooley, rather 
doubtfully, he being a man who entirely dis- 
approved of disobedience in any shape or 
form from a subordinate. “ Anyhow, his ex- 


STEPHEN CHARKE. 


21 


periences weren’t lovely at first. They don’t 
take runaways in the best ships, you know. 
However, he stuck to it — he had burnt his 
boats as far as regards his father — and — well! 
he holds a master’s certificate now, and he’s 
both a good sailor and a good fellow. He is 
in the Naval Reserve, too, and has had a year 
in a battle-ship.” 

“ And his father? ” Mrs. Waldron asked. 
“ Are they reconciled? ” 

“ The old man is dead and Charke has 
three or four thousand or so, which makes him 
more or less independent. He’s a queer fish 
in one way, and picks and chooses a good deal 
as to what kind of ship he will serve in. For 
instance, he won’t go in a passenger steamer 
because he says the mates are either treated 
with good-natured tolerance or snubbed by 
the passengers, and he aims at being an owner. 
However, as I said before, he’s a good fellow.” 

By this time the cab had forced its way 
along the Strand amidst hundreds of similar 
vehicles, many of which were disgorging their 
passengers at the various other theatres and, 
at last — after receiving a gracious permission 
to pass from those autocratic masters of the 


22 


THE SEAFARERS. 


public, the police stationed at the foot of 
Wellington Street — wrenched itself round 
and pulled up in its turn before the portico of 
the theatre. 

“ Here’s Charke,” said Pooley, while as 
he spoke a rather tall, good-looking man of 
dark complexion, who was irreproachably at- 
tired in evening dress, came up to them and 
was duly introduced. 

To Bella, whose knowledge of the world 
— outside the quiet, refined circle in which she 
had moved — was small, this man came more 
as a surprise than anything else. She knew 
nothing of the sea, although she was the 
daughter of an officer who had been in the 
Royal Navy, and her idea of what a “ mate ” 
was like was probably derived from those 
she had seen on the Jersey or Boulogne 
packet-boat, when her mother and she had 
occasionally visited those and similar places 
in the out-of-town season. Yet, Stephen 
Charke (she supposed because he was a gen- 
tleman’s son, and also because of that year in 
a battle-ship as an officer of the R.N.R.) was 
not at all what she had expected. His quiet, 
well-bred tones as he addressed her, with, in 


STEPHEN CHARKE. 


23 


their deep, ocean-acquired strength, that sub- 
tle inflection which makes the difference be- 
tween the gentleman and the man who is sim- 
ply not bad-mannered, took her entirely by 
surprise; while the courteous manner in 
which he addressed her, accompanied by 
something that proclaimed indubitably his ac- 
quaintance not only with the world, but its 
best customs, helped to contribute to that 
surprise. So that, as they proceeded towards 
their stalls, she found herself reflecting on 
what a small acquaintance she had with things 
in general outside her rather limited circle of 
vision. 


CHAPTER III. 


LET THOSE LOVE NOW WHO NEVER 
LOVED BEFORE.” 

The Captain led the way into the five 
stalls he had booked, followed, of course, by 
the elder ladies and, as Stephen Charke natu- 
rally went last, it followed that Bella and he 
sat by each other. And between the acts, 
the intervals of which were quite long enough 
for sustained conversation to take place, the 
girl had time to find her interest in him, as 
well as her surprise, considerably increased. 
She had perused a few novels dealing with the 
sea in her time, and in these the mates of the 
ships of whom she had read had more or less 
served to confirm her opinion already formed 
from real life. But when Charke began to 
talk to her about the actual source from which 
the play they were witnessing was drawn, she 
acknowledged to herself that, somehow, she 

must have conceived a wrong impression of 
24 


LOVE NOW, WHO NEVER LOVED* BEFORE. 25 

those seafarers. Certainly he, she thought, 
could not be one of those creatures who 
cursed and abused the men if they objected to 
their food and threatened next to put them in 
irons, nor did she believe such individuals 
would have been depicted as knowing much 
about the Revolution in France and the vul- 
gar triumphs of Napoleon. 

Then, during the next interval, he ap- 
proached the subject of the forthcoming fes- 
tivities at Portsmouth, to which Bella’s uncle 
had told him he was going to take his rela- 
tives, and, from that, he glided off into the 
statement that he himself would be there. 

“ I am going down next Monday,” he said, 
“ to see one or two of my old mess-mates of 
the Bacchus — in which I served for a year 
in the Channel Squadron, and I fancy I shall 
be in at most of the functions. Have you 
ever been to a Naval Ball? ” 

Bella told him she never had been to one, 
her mother’s intimacy with the service having 
entirely ceased with Captain Waldron’s death, 
and he then proceeded to give her an account 
of what these delightful functions were like. 
Indeed, so vividly did he portray them that 


26 


THE SEAFARERS. 


Bella almost wished that they were going on 
that very night to take part in one. 

When the play was over, she — who ac- 
knowledged to herself that which probably 
no power on earth would have ever induced 
her to acknowledge to anyone else, namely, 
that Stephen Charke was an agreeable, if not 
a fascinating companion — in company with 
the others prepared to return to West Ken- 
sington, bidding good-bye to him in the ves- 
tibule of the theatre. 

“ Where are you staying? ” Mrs. Waldron 
asked him, as they stood on the steps waiting 
for their cab to make its appearance in turn. 
“ And are you in London for any time? ” 

Charke mentioned the name of a West 
End caravansery at which he had a room as 
his abode for the next day or so, and, by doing 
so, he administered one more shock of sur- 
prise to the girl standing hooded and muffled 
by his side. For, again, in her ignorance, or, 
perhaps, owing to her reading of nautical nov- 
els, she had always imagined the officers of 
merchant vessels as herding somewhere in the 
purlieus of Radcliffe Highway when ashore, 
and rarely penetrating further west than the 


LOVE NOW, WHO NEVER LOVED BEFORE. 27 

city itself. It seemed, however, that either 
she had formed a totally wrong impression of 
such people, or those sources of information 
must themselves be wrong if all mates were 
like Mr. Charke. But, then, suddenly there 
occurred to her mind the fact that her uncle 
had said this young officer was in possession 
of some few thousand pounds of his own — 
and that probably would explain why he was 
living in a comfortable manner now he was 
ashore. 

“ I am at home to my friends every other 
Friday,” Mrs. Waldron said, as now the cab 
had got to the portico and a man was bawling 
out “ Mrs. Pooley’s carriage ” at the top of 
his voice — which statement, nevertheless, 
served the purpose required — “ and the day 
after to-morrow happens to be one of those 
Fridays. If you care to call — though I know 
gentlemen despise such things — we shall be 
glad to see you.” 

“ I do not despise them,” Charke an- 
swered, “ and I shall be delighted to come.” 
Then he bade them all good-night, saw the 
cab off, and strolled down to his hotel. In 

his inmost heart Charke did despise such 
3 


28 


THE SEAFARERS. 


things as “ at homes/’ or “ tea-fights,” as he 
termed them contemptuously to himself, yet, 
in common with a great many other men he 
was willing enough to go where there was any 
advantage strong enough to draw him. 

And he told himself that here was an at- 
traction such as he had never been subjected 
to before. “ What a lovely girl,” he thought 
to himself, “ what eyes and hair — and a nice 
girl, too. Now I begin to understand why 
other men curse the sea and say they would 
rather earn their living on shore driving 
busses than follow our calling. Also, why 
they nail up photographs in their cabins and 
watch every chance of getting mails off from 
the shore. I suppose I should have under- 
stood it earlier if I had ever met a girl like 
this before.” 

He did call on the following Friday after 
having passed the intervening two days in 
wandering about London, going to a race 
meeting one day and a cricket match at the 
Oval the next; in trying a dinner at one for- 
eign restaurant on the Wednesday and an- 
other at a second foreign restaurant on Thurs- 
day; but all the time he felt restless and un- 


LOVE NOW, WHO NEVER LOVED BEFORE. 29 

settled, and wished that four o’clock on 
Friday was at hand. 

“ This won’t do,” he said to himself, before 
the cricket match on Thursday was half over 
and while he sat baking in the sun that 
streamed down on to the Oval — which dis- 
turbed him not at all, and had no power to 
make him any browner — “ this won’t do. I 
must go to sea at once. By the time I have 
seen that girl again I shall be head over ears 
in love with her. And the interest on £4,000 
in India Stock — by Jove! it isn’t quite 
£4,000 now since I’ve been loafing about on 
shore! — and a chief officer’s pay won’t keep 
a wife. Not such a wife as she would be 
anyway.” 

He did not know it — or, perhaps, he did 
know it and would not acknowledge it to him- 
self — but he was very nearly head over ears 
in love with Bella Waldron already. And he 
had only seen her once! — been by her side at 
a theatre for three hours! — with three inter- 
vals of ten minutes in which to talk to her! 
Yet the girl’s beauty, her gentle innocence, 
above all, that trusting confidence with which 
she seemed to look out upon all that was pass- 


30 


THE SEAFARERS. 


in g before her and to regard the world as what 
it appeared to be, and to take it at its own 
valuation, had captured him. Also, he should 
have known, he must have known, that — 
when a man who has never thought much of 
the women he has met heretofore, and has 
generally forgotten what their features were 
like by the next day — takes to lying awake 
for hours, dreaming, at last, of one woman 
with whom he has by chance come into con- 
tact, he is as nearly in love with her as it is 
possible for him to be. 

So, at least, those report who have been in 
love, and so it has been told to the writer of 
this narrative! 

He found his way to Montmorency Road, 
West Kensington, exactly at four o’clock, 
and, while he sat in the pretty drawing-room 
talking to Mrs. Waldron who was alone at 
present — the appearance of Bella being prom- 
ised by her mother in a few moments — he 
found himself wondering what the girl did 
with her life here. He had seen a bicycle in 
the passage as he was shown upstairs, so he 
supposed she rode that, and there were some 
photographs of rather good-looking men 


LOVE NOW, WHO NEVER LOVED BEFORE. 

standing about on the semi-grand and on the 
plush-covered mantelshelf which made him 
feel horribly annoyed — until Mrs. Waldron, 
seeing his glance fixed on them, informed him 
that they were various cousins who were out 
of the country, while one or two of them hap- 
pened to have succumbed to climatic dis- 
orders abroad — for which he did not seem to 
feel as sorry as he supposed he ought to do. 
Then Bella came in, looking radiantly beauti- 
ful in an early summer dress (a description of 
which masculine ignorance renders impossi- 
ble), and Stephen Charke was happy for ten 
minutes. For they all talked of the impend- 
ing fetes at Portsmouth in honour of the for- 
eign fleet, and Charke found himself in an 
elysium when Bella promised — without the 
slightest self-consciousness or false shame — 
that he should undoubtedly have some dances 
reserved for him. 

Yet, soon, other callers came in, and 
Stephen Charke found himself deprived of the 
pleasure of further conversation with Bella. 

An elderly dowager claimed her attention 
and a middle-aged lady — of, as he considered 
menacing aspect — regaled him with the evil 


32 


THE SEAFARERS. 


doings of her domestic servants, a subject of 
about as much interest to this wanderer of 
the seas as that of embroidery or tatting 
would have been. An Irish Doctor of Divin- 
ity also disturbed his meditations on Bella’s 
beauty by telling funny stories, the point of 
which he had forgotten until he refreshed his 
memory by reference to a little note-book in 
which he had got them all written down, 
while a young militia subaltern who had failed 
for the army — and seemed rather proud of it ! 
— irritated him beyond endurance. Yet, 
even through this fatuous individual, there 
came something that was welcome to him, 
since he saw Bella regarding the youth with a 
look of such scarcely concealed contempt that 
he longed to tell the idiot that the only failure 
for which women have no pity in this world is 
intellectual failure. 

“ Good-bye,” he said to Bella, who ac- 
companied him to the head of the stairs after 
he had said his adieux to her mother. 
“ Good-bye. Next week — Portsmouth and 
my dances.” 

“ I shall not forget,” she said. 

After which he wandered about in devious 


LOVE NOW, WHO NEVER LOVED BEFORE. 33 

and intricate ways, which reminded him of 
some of the narrow passages he knew of 
through the islands in the China seas, and so 
arrived at the District Railway. 

And all the time he was telling himself 
that he was a fool — an absolute fool. “ I 
have fallen in love with a girl I have only seen 
twice,” he meditated, as the train ran through 
the sulphureous regions underground and he 
endeavoured to protect his lungs by smoking 
cigarette after cigarette; “ a girl who is not, 
and never can be, anything to me. She will 
make a good match some day; she must make 
a good match — girls of her position and looks 
always do — and a year or two hence, I shall 
luff into some unearthly harbour abroad and 
run against Pooley, who will tell me that she 
has done so.” 

Yet, all the same, he took comfort from 
remembering that he had not seen anybody at 
Mrs. Waldron’s “ afternoon ” who was likely 
to be the individual to carry her off. 

But in spite of this soothing reflection, he 
braced himself to a stern resolution, deter- 
mined that, as already in his life he had tri- 
umphed over other things, so he would tri- 


34 


THE SEAFARERS. 


umph now. Triumph over this swift flow- 
ering and still growing love, conquer it by 
absence from the object which inspired it, 
trample it down till there was nothing left of 
life in it. 

“ I have no money to keep a wife,” he 
thought, as he walked up from Charing Cross 
Station to his hotel, “ certainly no money to 
keep such a wife as she would be. And, even 
if I had, it is not likely that she would marry 
me — * a common mate ’ — as I have heard our- 
selves called. Portsmouth shall end it,” he 
concluded. “ I’ll have one good week there 
and then to sea again on a long cruise. That 
ought to do it! IT1 go down to the docks to- 
morrow and see what’s open.” 

Wherefore, full of this determinate reso- 
lution to drive from out of him the frenzy 
which had taken possession of his heart and 
mind, he went to his hotel and read in his 
bedroom for an hour or so, during all of which 
time Bella Waldron’s face was looking at him 
from the pages of the Quarterly Review, after 
which he went forth to try still another for- 
eign restaurant. Yet, still she was there, too, 
and her pure innocent eyes were gazing at him 


LOVE NOW, WHO NEVER LOVED BEFORE. 35 

across the imitation flowers and the red can- 
dle-shades in the middle of the table, and so 
she also was in the stalls of the Empire 
until he fell asleep in his seat. Nor was she 
absent from his mind during the long hours 
of the night. 


CHAPTER IV. 


PORTSMOUTH EN FETE. 

The lunch at Whale Island was over and 
there was a slight breathing space ere the gar- 
den-party, which followed it, began. Mean- 
while from Southsea pier, from down by the 
pontoon at the foot of the Old Head, and 
over from Gosport, picket boats, steam pin- 
naces and launches — all belonging to Her 
Majesty’s ships lying out at Spithead — were 
coming fast, as well as shore boats and numer- 
ous other craft that blackened the waters. 
And they bore in them a gaily dressed crowd 
of men and women, the ladies being adorned 
in all those beauteous raiments which they 
know so well how to assume on such an occa- 
sion, while amongst the gentlemen frock 
coats, tall hats, and white waistcoats, as well 
as full dress or “ No. i ” uniform, were the 
order of the day. For all these ships’ boats, 

after putting off from the battle-ships and 
36 


PORTSMOUTH EN FETE. 


37 


cruisers to which they belonged, had, by or- 
der of the Vice-Admiral commanding the 
Channel Squadron, called at the above-named 
places to fetch off the visitors to the Whale 
Island festivities. 

Stephen Charke in the uniform of the 
R.N.R. came in the picket boat of the Bac- 
chus, wherein he had been lunching with 
the ward-room officers, and, as she went 
alongside of the Southsea pier and afterwards 
at the Old Town Pier, he eagerly scanned 
the ladies who were waiting to be taken off. 
He was not, however, particularly disappoint- 
ed or cast down at not seeing the one girl he 
was looking out for at either of them, since, 
in the continual departure of similar boats, 
and the running backwards and forwards of 
these crafts between Whale Island and the 
landing stages, it was of coursq hardly to be 
supposed that she would happen upon the 
particular boat in which he was. 

He saw her, however, directly he, with his 
companions, had made their way to the lawn 
on which the wife of the Commander-in-Chief 
was receiving her guests, and — in so seeing 
her — he recognised instantly that he was not 


38 


THE SEAFARERS. 


going to enjoy his afternoon as much as he 
had hoped to do. 

“Who’s that?” he asked of the Staff- 
Commander of the Bacchus with whom he 
happened to be walking at the moment. “ I 
mean that flag-lieutenant talking to the 
young lady in the white dress! ” 

“ That ! ” replied his companion, regard- 
ing the young officer indicated. “Oh! that’s 
Gilbert Bampfyld, flag-lieutenant to the Rear 
Admiral. He’s a good chap — I’ll introduce 
you later. A lucky fellow, too, he’s heir to 
his uncle, Lord D’Abernon. He’s all right,” 
he concluded, inconsequently. 

“ I know the young lady,” Stephen said. 
“ I’ve been at sea with her uncle.” 

“ Good-looking,” said the Staff-Com- 
mander, who was a single man. “ Fine girl, 
too. I hope she’s coming to the ball.” 

“ She is,” Charke replied, and then stood 
observing her companion from the little 
group of which they now formed a part. 

Certainly the young officer was “ all 
right,” if good looks and a manly figure can 
entitle anyone to that qualification. He was 
undoubtedly handsome, with the handsome- 


PORTSMOUTH EN FETE. 


39 


ness with which women are stated (by the 
authorities on such matters) to admire, his 
bright eyes and good complexion, as well as 
his clear cut regular features, leaving little else 
to desire. Also, he was fairly tall, while, if 
anything were required to set off his appear- 
ance, it was furnished by his full dress and his 
flag-lieutenant’s aiguillettes. He was talk- 
ing now in an animated way, as Charke could 
see easily enough from where he stood by the 
refreshment-tent; and it was not possible for 
him to doubt that he was making himself very 
interesting to Bella. 

For a moment Stephen stood hesitating as 
to whether he should go up and present him- 
self to the girl who had never been out of his 
thoughts since he said “ Good-bye ” in West 
Kensington; then, while he still debated the 
matter in his mind, she saw him and smiled 
and nodded pleasantly, while she looked — as he 
thought — as though she expected he should 
go up to her. Which, of course, decided him. 

There was no affectation in the manner 
wherewith Bella greeted him — in truth, she 
was glad to see him, and, honestly, as she did 
everything else, she said so. 


40 


THE SEAFARERS. 


“ I have been looking for you for the 
last half hour,” she remarked as he reached 
her side, “ and wondering if you were coming 
or not.” After which she introduced Stephen 
Charke and Gilbert Bampfyld to each other. 
Then some other officers coming up at this 
moment more introductions took place, while 
Bampfyld said that he must move off. 

“ I have escaped from my admiral for a few 
moments,” he said, while he added with a 
laugh, “ I am not quite sure, however, that he 
is not congratulating himself on having es- 
caped from me. I hope, Miss Waldron,” he 
added, “ that you have an invitation for the 
ball.” 

“ Yes,” Bella said, and then she smiled at 
Lieutenant Bampfyld’s request that he might 
not be forgotten on that occasion, though she 
did not say positively whether that calamity 
would occur or not. After which, when he 
had moved off to join the distinguished of- 
ficer to whom it was his duty to be attached 
almost as tightly as a limpet to a rock, she 
said to Charke: “ Come, now, and see mam- 
ma. She is in the shade behind the tent, and 
she has found an old friend of papa's.” 


PORTSMOUTH EN FETE. 


41 

But it was so evident that Mrs. Waldron 
was thoroughly enjoying herself with that old 
friend, who was a retired post-captain (she 
was at the moment of their arrival engaged in 
reminiscences of the North American and 
West Indian Station), that they strolled away 
together and, finding soon another shady seat, 
sat down and passed an agreeable hour or so. 
Wherefore, as you may now see, Stephen 
Charke did spend a happy afternoon, notwith- 
standing that the first apparition of the flag- 
lieutenant in converse with the girl who was 
now never out of his own thoughts. Indeed, 
it would have been to him a perfect afternoon 
had he not more than once seen Bampfyld 
(who again appeared to have escaped from his 
admiral!) roaming about the place with a 
more or less disconsolate as well as penetrat- 
ing look upon his face, which look Charke 
construed into signifying that the other was 
seeking for the girl of whom he himself had 
obtained temporary possession. However, 
even so, he did not think it necessary to call 
Bella’s attention to the fact. 

But one must not tarry on those soft sum- 
mer beguilements to which the old naval 


42 


THE SEAFARERS. 


capital and all in her had given themselves 
up. There lie other matters before us — mat- 
ters which, when they afterwards occurred, 
caused three people now partaking of these 
enjoyments to, perhaps, cast back their mem- 
ories to them, and these memories, too, not 
untinged by regret. Suffice it, therefore, that 
we hurry on and — o’erleaping another gar- 
den-party which took place at the military 
commandant’s, and an “ at home ” given on 
board the foreign visitors’ flag-ship, as well as 
entertainments at which only the male sex 
were present — come to the Naval Ball at the 
Town Hall. 

That was a great night, a night on which, 
if one may judge by subsequent events, many 
loving hearts were made happy — on which, 
too, some saw the dawn of the first promise 
of future happiness — and — one man at least — 
was made unhappy. It was a great night, a 
night no more forgotten by three people in 
the days that followed it than was the garden- 
party which preceded it by a day or so. 

The First Lord of the Admiralty led off 
the quadrille with the wife of the Com- 
mander-in-Chief; the Prince who was in com- 


PORTSMOUTH EN FETE. 


43 


mand of the foreign fleet dancing with the 
First Lord’s wife in the set round which the 
other guests formed a vast circle, these being 
the most prominent individuals then present 
in Portsmouth. And Bella, standing close 
by, with her hand upon the arm of Stephen 
Charke while they waited for the first dance 
in which all the guests could participate, felt 
that, at last, she knew what a ball was P 

“ It isn’t quite like a State ball,” whis- 
pered Lieutenant Bampfyld to them as he 
passed by with his admiral — he being quali- 
fied to give such information in consequence 
of his duties as a flag-lieutenant having 
often provided him with the opportunity of 
attending those great functions — “ but it’s 
much prettier.” Then he disappeared for a 
time. 

“ It could scarcely be prettier than it is,” 
Bella said to Charke. “ How has the room 
been made so beautiful? ” 

“ The men of the Vernon have done it 
all,” her companion answered; “ they are 
good at that sort of thing.” 

As, indeed, they seemed to be, judging by 
the effect they had produced. Trophies of 
4 


44 


THE SEAFARERS. 


arms, flags, devices, lifebuoys white as snow, 
with the names of vessels belonging both to 
the visitors and ourselves painted in gold 
upon them, decorated the vast room, while 
from the dockyard had been unearthed old 
armour and weapons such as in these pres- 
ent days are forgotten. Also, the colour 
lent by various uniforms, naval, military, and 
marine, as well as by flowers and bouquets 
carried by ladies, added to the brilliant scene, 
while the sombre black of civilians helped 
to give a contrast to the bright hues. For 
civilians were not forgotten — Admiralty of- 
ficials, private residents, special correspon- 
dents — with a wary eye on their watches, so 
that they might be able to rush over to the 
Post Office with their last message for the 
great London and provincial papers — were all 
there. 

“ Come,” said Stephen Charke, as the 
band of the Royal Marines struck up the first 
waltz, “ come, Miss Waldron, it is our turn 
now.” 

And for ten minutes he realised what hap- 
piness was. 

That he would have to resign her for the 


PORTSMOUTH EN FETE. 


45 


greater part of the evening he knew very well 
— her programme was already full — his name 
appearing three times on it and Lieutenant 
Bampfyld’s also three times — yet he did so 
later none the less willingly for that knowl- 
edge. How could he? He loved the girl 
with his whole heart and soul — madly! “ I 
shall love her always until I die!” he mut- 
tered to himself as he stood by, seeking no 
other partner and watching her dancing now 
with the flag-lieutenant. Also he saw her 
dancing with the flag-lieutenant of the other 
Admiral — though that did not seem to him 
to be so disturbing a matter. “ Till I die! ” 
he repeated, then once more called himself a 
fool. 

His second dance with her arrived, and 
again he was in his seventh heaven; for the 
moment he was again supremely happy. 

“ I hope I may have the pleasure of taking 
you into supper,” he almost whispered in her 
ear as they paused a moment for breath, and 
it seemed as if the light of his enjoyment — 
for that evening, at least — had been suddenly 
extinguished when she, raising those pure 
clear eyes to his, exclaimed: 


4 6 


THE SEAFARERS. 


“ Oh! I am so sorry. But I have prom- 
ised Lieutenant Bamfyld that he shall do 
so.” 

For the remainder of the ball Charke did 
not let a dance pass by without taking part in 
it, he allowing his friends to introduce him 
right and left to any lady who happened to 
require a partner, though reserving, of course, 
the one for which he was engaged to Bella, at 
what would be almost the end of the evening. 
In fact, as his friend the staff-commandant 
said, “ he let himself go pretty considerably,” 
and he so far exemplified that gentleman’s 
remark that he took in to supper one of the 
plainest of those middle-aged ladies who hap- 
pened to be gracing the ball with her pres- 
ence. 

Yet this lady found nothing whatever 
to complain of to herself (to her friends 
she would have uttered no complaint of 
her cavalier even though he had been as 
stupid as an owl and as dumb as a stone, 
she being a very old campaigner), but, in- 
stead, thought him a charming compan- 
ion. Perhaps, too, she had good reason 
to do so, since, from the moment he had con- 


PORTSMOUTH EN FETE. 


47 


ducted her across the temporarily constructed 
bridge which led from the Town Hall proper 
to the supper tent erected in a vacant plot of 
ground, his conversation was full of smart 
sayings and pleasant, though, occasionally, 
sub-acid remarks on things in general. Yet, 
naturally, it was impossible that she should 
know that the undoubtedly bright and pi- 
quant conversation with which he entertained 
her was partly produced by his bitterness at 
seeing Gilbert Bampfyld and Bella enjoying 
themselves thoroughly at a table a deux, close 
by where he and his partner were seated, and 
partly by his stoical determination to “ let 
things go.” Also, too, by another deter- 
mination at which he had arrived — namely, to 
go to sea again at the very first moment he 
could find a ship. 


CHAPTER V. 


“ SO, FAREWELL HOPE.” 

Nine months had passed since the en- 
tertainment of the foreign fleet at Ports- 
mouth — months that had been pregnant with 
events concerning the three persons with 
whom this narrative deals; and Bella sat now 
at the end of a dull March afternoon in the 
pretty drawing-room in West Kensington. 
Sat there meditating deeply, since she hap- 
pened to be alone at the moment, owing to 
Mrs. Waldron having gone out to pay several 
calls. 

Of all who had been at those entertain- 
ments, of all in the party which in the preced- 
ing June had gathered together at Ports- 
mouth, the three ladies of the family, Mrs. 
Waldron, Mrs. Pooley, and Bella, were alone 
in England — the three men, the three sailors, 
were all gone to different parts of the world. 
Captain Pooley had sailed with his vessel to 
48 


SO, FAREWELL HOPE.’ 


49 


Australia, Stephen Charke had gone to China 
as first officer of a large vessel, Gilbert Bamp- 
fyld, who, in consequence of the Rear Ad- 
miral's retirement, no longer wore the 
aiguillettes of a flag-lieutenant, had been 
appointed to the Briseus on the East Indian 
Station. 

And Bella, sitting now in her arm-chair 
in front of the drawing-room fire — with a let- 
ter lying open on her lap before her — was 
thinking of the writer of that letter as well 
as of all it contained. If one glances at it as 
it lies there before her much may be gleaned 
of what has happened in those nine months, 
while, perhaps, also, some idea, some light, 
may be gained of that which is to come. 

“ My darling," it commenced — and pos- 
sibly the writer, far away, may have hoped 
that, as he wrote those words, they would be 
kissed as often by the person to whom they 
were addressed as he fondly desired: — 

“ My Darling: Your letter came to me 
to-day and I must write back to you at once, 
this very instant, not only because I want to 
put all my thoughts on paper, but also because 


THE SEAFARERS. 


50 

I can thus catch the P. and O. mail. How 
good! how good you are! Also I do not for- 
get how good your mother is. I know I 
ought not — at least, I suppose I ought not, 
to ask you to do such a thing as come out to 
me, and I can assure you I hesitated for weeks 
before daring to do so. Yet when I reflected 
that if you could not bring yourself to come, 
as well as induce your mother to give her con- 
sent to your coming, we could not possibly be 
married for three years, it was impossible to 
hesitate any longer. And now — now — oh ! 
Bella, my darling, I could dance for joy if my 
cabin was large enough to allow of such a 
thing — you are coming! You will come! 
How happy we shall be! I can think of noth- 
ing else — nothing! You don’t know how I 
feel, and it’s useless for me to try to tell 


No further need be said of this letter, how- 
ever, and since the reader will shortly be in- 
formed of what led to it, nothing more need 
be said than that, after a good deal of ex- 
planation as to how the young lady to whom 
it was addressed was to make her plans for 


SO, FAREWELL HOPE.’ 


51 

reaching Bombay, it was signed : “ Gilbert 
Bampfyld.” 

So that one sees now what had been the 
outcome of that week of delight at Ports- 
mouth during the last summer, understands 
all that had been the result of those garden- 
parties and that ball. 

They — the festivities — were followed by a 
renewal of the acquaintanceship between Mrs. 
Waldron and her daughter with Gilbert 
Bampfyld, as, indeed, the latter had made up 
his mind should be the case, and as — since the 
truth must always be spoken — Bella had 
hoped would happen. Followed, that is to 
say, directly the naval manoeuvres were over, 
for which important functions both divisions 
of the Channel Squadron were, of course, util- 
ized, while not a week had elapsed from the 
time of the return of the ships to their sta- 
tions before Gilbert Bampfyld presented 
himself in Montmorency Road. And that 
presentation of himself at this suburban re- 
treat was, it is surely unnecessary to say, fol- 
lowed by many other things, all showing 
what is impending and what actually hap- 
pened later on. Gilbert Bampfyld told Bella 


52 


THE SEAFARERS. 


that he loved her and wanted her for his wife, 
and — well! one can imagine the rest. What 
was there to stand between these two loving 
hearts? What? Nothing to impede their 
engagement; nothing that need have im- 
peded their immediate marriage except the 
fact that Bella’s maiden modesty could never 
have been brought to consent to a union so 
hurriedly entered into as would have been 
necessary had she agreed to become his wife 
ere he set out for Bombay to join the Bri- 
seus — to which he was now appointed. 

One regrets, however, when describing 
such soft and glowing incidents as these, that 
space is so circumscribed (owing to the can- 
vas having to be filled with larger events now 
looming near) as to leave no room for more 
minute descriptions of their love. It would 
have been pleasant to have dwelt upon Bella’s 
ecstatic joy at having been asked to be the 
wife of the one man — the first man — whose 
love she had ever desired (ah! that is it — to 
be the first man — or the first girl — who has 
ever touched the heart of him or her we wor- 
ship!), only it must not be — the reader’s own 
imagination must be asked to fill the missing 


SO, FAREWELL HOPE.’ 


53 


description. Let those, therefore, who re- 
member the earliest whispered word of love 
they ever spoke, or had spoken to them; who 
recall still the first kiss they ever gave or took, 
and who can remember, above all, the joy 
that came to them when first they loved and 
knew themselves beloved, fill the hiatus. 
That will suffice. 

“We shall be so happy, dearest,” Gilbert 
said, when all preliminaries had been arranged 
in so far as their engagement was concerned, 
and when he did not know at the time that he 
was about to be sent on foreign service, but 
hoped that he might be allowed to remain in 
the Channel Squadron or be transferred to the 
Training Squadron, or, at worst, appointed 
to the Mediterranean. “ We shall be so 
happy, darling. I hoped from the first to win 
you — though — though sometimes I feared 
there might be some one else.” 

“ There never could have been any one 
else. Never, after I had once met you,” she 
murmured. “Ah! Gilbert!” and then she, 
too, said she was so happy. Yet a moment 
later she whispered: “ Yet, somehow, it seems 
too good to be true. All has come so easily 


54 


THE SEAFARERS. 


in the way that I — well! as we desired, that 
sometimes I think there may be — something 
may arise to — to ” 

“ What? Prevent our marriage. Noth- 
ing can do that. Nothing could have done 
that. Nothing.” 

“ Suppose your uncle, Lord D’Abernon, 
had objected? ” she said, remembering that 
she had heard how this nobleman was not al- 
ways given to making things quite as easy 
and comfortable to those by whom he was 
surrounded as was considered desirable. 
“ Suppose that had happened? ” 

“ Oh! he’s all right,” Gilbert replied. 
“ He expected his opinion to be asked and his 
consent to be obtained, and all that sort of 
thing, but, outside that, he’s satisfied. And, if 
he weren’t, it wouldn’t have made any differ- 
ence to us — after I had once seen you.” For 
which he was rewarded with one of those 
chaste salutes which Bella had learnt by now 
to bestow without too much diffidence. As 
regards Mrs. Waldron — well! she was a 
mother, and it was not to be supposed that 
such a distinguished match as Bella was about 
to make could be aught but satisfactory to 


SO, FAREWELL HOPE.’ 


55 


her; while Captain Pooley, who had not yet 
departed with the Emperor of the Moon for 
Australia, told his niece that she was a lucky 
girl. He also informed Gilbert that, as he 
was a childless man, Bella would eventually 
fall heiress to anything he and his wife might 
leave behind them. Matters looked, there- 
fore, as though they would go as merry as the 
proverbial marriage bell. All, as the old ro- 
mancists used to say, was very well. 

Then fell the first blow — the one that was 
to separate those two fond hearts. Gilbert 
was suddenly appointed to the Briseus, 
and ordered to proceed to Bombay to join her 
at once; and, a fortnight later, he was gone 
and poor Bella was left behind lamenting. 

She was sitting, lamenting still, before her 
fire on this March day, with his newly-arrived 
letter in her lap — in solemn truth she had 
been lamenting his departure ever since it had 
taken place! — when, suddenly, there broke in 
upon her ears the sound of a visitor’s knock 
below. Then, before she could distinguish 
whose voice it was addressing the servant 
who had answered the door, she heard a man- 
ly footstep on the stairs and, a moment later, 


THE SEAFARERS. 


56 

the maid-servant announced “ Mr. Charke. ,, 
Mr. Charke! the man whose memory had al- 
most faded from her mind — as she had re- 
proached herself more than once when it did 
happen to recur to her — the man whom she 
had learnt to like so much during all that 
happy time last year. Now — as she gazed on 
him as he came forward, and noticed how 
brown he was, more deeply browned indeed 
than she had thought it possible for him, who 
was already so tanned and sun-burnt, to be, 
and noticed, too, the strong, self-reliant look 
on his face — she reproached herself again. 
Acknowledged, also, that she had liked him 
so much that even her new-found happiness 
ought not to have driven all recollection of 
him entirely from her mind. 

Then she greeted him warmly, saying all 
the pleasant little words of welcome that a 
woman, whose heart is in unison with her 
good-breeding, knows how to say, and made 
him welcome. Yet, as she did so, she noticed 
that he was graver, more sad it seemed to her, 
than she had ever remarked before. 

“ You are not ill? ” she asked, as this fact 
became more and more apparent to her. 


SO, FAREWELL HOPE.’ 


57 


“ Surely you, a sailor, have not come back 
from the sea unwell? At least, I hope not.” 

“ No,” he said. “ No. Nor, I hope, do I 
seem so. Do you know that besides my de- 
sire to call and see you, I came for another 
purpose,” and now his eyes rested on her with 
so strange a light — so mournful, deep a light 
— that in a moment her woman’s instinct told 
her something as plainly as though her voice 
had done so. 

Like a flash of lightning that instinct re- 
vealed to her the fact that this man loved her, 
that, from the moment they had parted 
months ago, she had never been absent from 
his mind. She knew it; she was certain she 
was right — she could not be deceived! Then 
to herself she said: “ Heaven help him — 
Heaven prevent him from telling me so! ” 

But aloud — her heart full of pity — she 
said: “Indeed!” and smiled bravely on him 
while she spoke. “ Indeed! What was that 
purpose? ” 

“To congratulate you. To ” 

“ Congratulate me! ” 

“Yes. I met the Emperor of the 
Moon at Cape Town. We were both home- 


THE SEAFARERS. 


58 

ward bound. And — and — your uncle told 
me the news. Miss Waldron, I offer my 
congratulations now.” Yet, as he said the 
words, she saw that his face was turned a lit- 
tle aside; she could not perceive his eyes. 
Congratulations! Well! they might be sin- 
cere in so far as that, because he loved her, he 
wished her well — desired that she should be 
happy! — but — but — otherwise — no! It was 
not to be thought upon. 

As he said the words “ I congratulate 
you,” he followed an old custom — one more 
foreign than English — and held out his hand, 
taking hers. Kept it, too, fast in his own, 
while he said in a voice that his struggles with 
the elements had made so deep and sonorous: 

“ Yes, congratulate you. I must do that. 
To — to — see you happy — to know you are so, 
is all that I have — all — I hope for now. Yet 
— there is no treachery to him in what I say — 
God help me! — I mean none — but — but — I — 
from the first — I have lo ” 

“ No! No! ” she murmured, striving to 
withdraw her hand, yet not doing so angrily. 
“ No! No! Don’t say it, Mr. Charke. 
Don’t! Pray don’t!” And now neither 


SO, FAREWELL HOPE.” 


59 


could he see her eyes nor her averted face. 
“ Don’t say it. You do not desire to make 
me unhappy? ” she murmured. 

“ Never, as God hears me. But — I have 
said it. I had to say it. Good-bye.” 

“ Good-bye,” she murmured, and then, as 
he neared the door, she turned once and 
looked at him with eyes that were full of in- 
finite pity and compassion. 


5 


CHAPTER VI. 

“and bend the gallant mast, 

MY BOYS.” 

Events were drawing near now to that 
night when Bella was to have those distress- 
ing dreams which have been mentioned 
at the opening of this narrative; all was ar- 
ranged for her departure to Bombay. A lit- 
tle more and she will be on her way to India 
and to wedlock. 

Yet all had not been quite easy and 
smooth in the settlement of affairs. 

At first Mrs. Waldron, good, loving 
mother as she was, and fully recognisant of 
two facts — namely, that Bella loved Lieuten- 
ant Bamfyld madly and would be an unhappy 
woman if she did not become his wife long 
ere three years had passed, as well as that 
the match which her child was about to make 
was undoubtedly a brilliant one — refused to 
60 


“ AND BEND THE GALLANT MAST, MY BOYS." 6 1 

hear of such a thing as that she should go out 
to him. 

“ If you are worth having,” she said, when 
first the proposal was submitted to her; “ you 
are surely worth coming for.” And since 
this was a truism, it was hardly to be gain- 
said. Yet, as we know by now, she had been 
won by her daughter’s pleadings and entreat- 
ies; by, too, the plain and undeniable fact that 
there was not the slightest possibility of Lieu- 
tenant Bampfyld being able to come home to 
marry her, or to return to England in any 
way — short of being invalided — until the 
Briseus herself returned. 

Then, no sooner had this difficulty been 
surmounted than another reared its head be- 
fore mother and daughter. How was she to 
go out to Bombay alone and unprotected? 
A young married woman who had to proceed 
to India to join her husband might very well 
undertake such a journey, but not a young 
woman such as Bella was — while for chaperon, 
or protectress, there was no one forthcoming. 
At first, it is true, Mrs. Waldron had medi- 
tated on accompanying Bella herself (she be- 
ing an old sailor to whom long sea-voyages 


62 


THE SEAFARERS. 


were little more than railway journeys are to 
some more stay-at-home ladies), only, down 
in the depths of her nature, which was an ex- 
tremely refined one, there was some voice 
whispering to her that it would be indelicate 
to thus bring her daughter out in pursuit of 
her affianced husband. It is true, however, 
that authorities on social etiquette who have 
since been consulted have averred that this 
was a false feeling which had possession of 
Mrs. Waldron’s mind, but, be that as it may, 
it existed. Also, she still regarded the mat- 
ter of her child going to her husband, in- 
stead of that husband coming to fetch her, as 
one of particular delicacy; one of such nicety 
as to permit of no elaboration, and she re- 
solved that, come what might — even though 
she should have to purchase, or hire rather, 
the services of an elderly and austere travel- 
ling companion — she must not herself accom- 
pany Bella. 

“ Heaven knows what is to be done,” she 
said to her daughter as they discussed the im- 
portant point, “but I suppose it will come 
to that!” the “that” meaning the hired 
chaperon. Then she sighed a little, remem- 


" AND BEND THE GALLANT MAST, MY BOYS.” 63 

bering how the late Captain Waldron had en- 
compassed thousands of miles in a voyage 
which he made from the antipodes to espouse 
her. 

Yet, ere many days had passed, the clouds 
of obstruction were suddenly removed in a 
manner which seemed almost — as the fond 
mother stated — providential. Captain Poo- 
ley’s ship had followed home, after a week or 
so of interval, that in which Stephen Charke 
had returned to England, and its arrival was 
soon succeeded by his own at Montmorency 
Street. 

“Going out to him to be married!” he 
exclaimed, after his sister — who happened to 
be alone at the time of his visit — had made 
him acquainted with what she had given her 
consent to, some two or three months before, 
on Gilbert’s application backed up by Bella’s 
supplications, and which she had moaned over 
inwardly ever since she had so given it. 
“ Going out to be married, eh? Why! she 
must want a husband badly! ” Yet, because 
he knew well enough the customs of Her 
Majesty’s Service, and the impossibility which 
prevailed in that service of an officer coming 


6 4 


THE SEAFARERS. 


home to marry his bride, he did not repeat her 
words: “ If she is worth having, she is worth 
coming for.” 

“ So other people have thought, if they 
have not actually said so,” Mrs. Waldron re- 
plied. “ I am sure they must have thought 
so. Yet,” she went on, with determination, 
“ I have agreed to it and I cannot retract my 
word. It is given and must be kept. No! it 
is not that which troubles me.” 

“ What then?” 

“ Why, the getting out. How is the 
child to go alone in a great liner with two or 
three hundred passengers all the way to Bom- 
bay? How? ” she repeated. 

“ Bombay, eh? Bombay? Oh! well, if 
that’s her destination she can go comfortably 
enough. There need be no trouble about 
that. Only she will be more than double 
the time the P. and O. or any other line 
would take to carry her.” 

“ What do you mean, George? ” 

“ Why,” he said, “ I happen to be taking 
the old Emperor to Bombay next month 
with a general cargo — calling at the Cape on 
the way. She can go with me and welcome. 


“ AND BEND THE GALLANT MAST, MY BOYS.” 65 

There’s a cabin fit for a duchess which she 
can have. ,, 

It was a cabin fit for a duchess, as Bella 
and her mother acknowledged when, a fort- 
night later, they went down to Gravesend to 
inspect the Emperor of the Moon, and 
after it had been decided in solemn family 
conclave that by this ship the former should 
make the voyage to India. Also, it was more 
than likely that the girl would make it under 
particularly pleasant circumstances, since this 
was one of those occasions on which Mrs. 
Pooley had decided to accompany her hus- 
band, she not having felt very well during the 
past winter. At present the cabin was empty 
and denuded of everything, Pooley having de- 
termined to have it refurnished; but when he 
told them how that furniture would be ar- 
ranged in the great roomy place which would 
have been dignified as a “ State Room ” in 
one of the old clippers, Bella again said, as she 
had said so often before, that “ he was the 
best old uncle in the world.” 

Now, the Emperor of the Moon was a 
smart, though old-fashioned, full-rigged ship 


66 


THE SEAFARERS. 


of about six hundred tons, her lines perfect, 
yet leaving her full of room inside. Her sa- 
loon was a comfortable one, well furnished 
with plush-covered chairs and benches — the 
covering being quite new; a piano — also 
looking new — was lashed to the stern of the 
mizze'n-mast ; while there were swinging 
vases in which, later, no doubt, fresh ferns and 
flowers would be placed. On deck she was 
very clean and white, with much brass and 
everything new and ship-shape, while the sea- 
man who should regard her bows and stern 
would at once acknowledge that she had little 
left to desire, old as she was. For they built 
ships in the days when she was laid with a 
view to both sea qualities and comfort, and 
the Emperor of the Moon lacked neither. 
Her sleeping cabins were bed-rooms, her sa- 
loon was a dining-room as good as you would 
find in a fifty pound a year suburban resi- 
dence, and her masts would have done credit 
to one of Her Majesty’s earlier ships. Alto- 
gether, Bella was pleased with it all, especially 
with her cabin, which was on the port side of 
the saloon; and, besides, she was pleasantly 
excited at the idea of so long a sailing voyage. 


“ AND BEND THE GALLANT MAST, MY BOYS.” 67 

“ I know,” she said to her uncle, “ that we 
shall have a delightful time of it, and for 
companionship I shall have you and aunty. 
That’s enough.” 

“ You will have some one else, too,” Poo- 
ley said, with a smile; “ you know I have two 
officers. Come,” and again he smiled, “ it is 
our ‘ lay days,’ ” by which he meant that they 
were shipping their cargo. “ Come, and I 
will introduce them to you.” Then he led 
the way up the companion to the deck. 

They met one of these officers, the second 
mate, a young man whom Pooley introduced 
as Mr. Fagg, and then, while they were all 
talking together, Bella heard a deep low voice 
behind her say, “ How do you do, Miss Wal- 
dron? ” — a voice that caused her to start as 
she turned round to find herself face to face 
with Stephen Charke. 

“You!” she exclaimed involuntarily. 
“You! Are you going on this voyage? ” 

“ I am first officer,” he said. “ I wanted a 
berth, and Captain Pooley has given me one.” 

And amid her uncle’s joyous laughter, 
and his remarks that he knew this would be 
a pleasant surprise for Bella, and while, too, 


68 


THE SEAFARERS. 


Mrs. Waldron said that she was delighted to 
think he would be in the ship to look after her 
daughter, that daughter had time to think — 
to reflect. 

In her heart she would far rather that 
Charke had not been here; also, she wondered 
how he could have brought himself to accept 
his present position knowing, as he must have 
known, that she was going in the ship. 

“ It is so vain, so useless,” she thought, 
“ and can only lead to discomfort. We shall 
both feel embarrassed all the way. Oh, I 
wish he were not coming! ” Then, although 
she pitied him, and although she had always 
liked him, she resolved that the whole of the 
time they were together in the ship she would 
see as little of Stephen Charke as possible. 

“ You do not object to my presence, I 
hope? ” he said a moment later, as they both 
stood by the capstan alone; Pooley and his 
wife and sister having moved off forward. “ I 
should be sorry to think my being here was 
disagreeable to you. I have to earn my liv- 
ing, you know.” 

“ What right could I have to object, Mr. 
Charke? ” 


“AND BEND THE GALLANT MAST, MY BOYS.” 69 

“ Perhaps you think I have behaved indis- 
creetly? ” 

For a moment she let her eyes fall on him 
and rest upon his own, then she said: “ I will 
not give any opinion. You have to earn your 
living, as you say, while as for me — well, you 
know what I am going to India for.” 

“ Yes,” he answered, “ I do know.” 
Then he added: “ Do not be under any wrong 
impression. I shall not annoy you. I am 
the chief officer of this ship, and you are a pas- 
senger. That is, I understand, how the voy- 
age is to be made.” 

“ If you please,” Bella replied very softly, 
and the tones of her voice might well have 
brought some comfort to him if anything 
short of the possession of her love could have 
done so. 

A fortnight or three weeks later the pilot 
had left the Emperor of the Moon, the lee 
main braces were manned, the ship was lying 
over under her canvas, and the wind was well 
astern. Bella was on her way to India and 
her lover. 

Let us pass over the parting between 
mother and child, the fond embraces, the tears 


70 


THE SEAFARERS. 


and sobs which accompanied that parting fol- 
lowing after the dawn when we first made the 
girl’s acquaintance — following, too, after that 
night of unrest and disturbing dreams. No 
description of such partings is necessary; 
many of us, young and old, men and women, 
have had to make them; to part from the dear 
gray-haired mother who has sobbed on our 
breast ere we went forth to find our liveli- 
hood, if not our fortune, in a strange world; 
many of us have had to let the child of our 
longings and our hopes and prayers go forth 
from us who have sheltered and nurtured it; 
have, perhaps, in earlier days, prayed God 
night and morning that, in his mercy, it 
might never leave our side. We go away 
ourselves because we must, also they go from 
us because they must, and there is nothing 
but the same hope left in all our breasts — the 
hope that we shall not be forgotten — that, as 
the years roll on, those we have left behind 
will keep a warm spot for us in their memory, 
or that those who have left us behind will 
sometimes turn their thoughts back longing- 
ly to us in our desolation. It has to be, and it 
has to be borne. Alas! that parting is the 


“ AND BEND THE GALLANT MAST, MY BOYS.” 

penalty we all have to pay for having ever 
been allowed to be together. 

And so, across the seas the stout old 
Emperor of the Moon went, buffeting 
with the Channel, throwing away the rough 
waves with her fore-foot as though she de- 
spised them, sinking England and home be- 
hind her with every plunge she made. 

And at the moment that she was leaving 
the Lizard far away astern of her and was run- 
ning well out into the Atlantic, a telegram 
was delivered in Montmorency Road ad- 
dressed to Bella, which was opened by her 
mother — a telegram signed “ Gilbert,” 
which ran: “ Don’t start. Briseus ap- 
pointed to East Coast Africa. Slave-catch- 
ing.” 

A telegram that had come three days too 
late; a telegram which, though forwarded 
on to Cape Town, lay for forty-seven days 
there awaiting the arrival of the Emperor 
of the Moon, and was eventually forgotten. 


CHAPTER VII. 

“ AN OCEAN WAIF.” 

From the time the men had sheeted home 
the topsails as the Emperor of the Moon 
got under way until now, when, having left 
the Cape of Good Hope behind her, she was 
travelling through the water at a tremendous 
speed, her head set due north, scarcely any- 
thing had occurred much worthy of note. 
Soon, after the first two days had passed, 
during which time Bella had lain flat in her 
berth in the large roomy cabin provided for 
her by her uncle, while his wife had adminis- 
tered to her odd glasses of champagne, little 
cups of rich, succulent soup, and such like 
delicacies, the girl was able to reach the deck. 
And once there, and under an awning 
stretched from the ensign staff to past the 
mizzen-mast, she would sit and meditate for 
hours on the forthcoming meeting with her 
lover, which drew nearer and nearer with each 
72 


AN OCEAN WAIF.” 


73 


plunge of the Emperor’s fore-foot 'into the 
sapphire sea. Sometimes, too, she would 
read aloud a novel to Mrs. Pooley, who, be- 
cause she was good and motherly and fat, 
would listen to nothing but the most ro- 
mantic love stories which the vivid brains of 
fashionable lady novelists could turn out; 
though, when alone and reading for her own 
amusement, Bella would pore over books of 
adventure in wild parts of the world or devour 
some of the histories of marine adventure 
which her uncle possessed in his neat mahog- 
any bookcases below. 

Of Stephen Charke she saw, of course, a 
good deal, as it was natural she should do. 
You cannot be in a ship, however large — or 
small — without seeing much of all on board; 
but when it comes to sitting down every 
twenty-four hours to what Captain Pooley 
called “ four square meals a day, with intervals 
between for refreshments,” you must not only 
be brought into constant touch with your 
companions, but also enter into much dis- 
course with them. Yet, as the girl told her- 
self, Charke was behaving well, extremely 
well, so that gradually she lost all sense of 


74 


THE SEAFARERS. 


discomfort which would otherwise have arisen 
through being thrown continually into his 
society, and ere long she would observe his 
approach without the slightest tremor of sus- 
ceptibility. Soon, too, she began to ac- 
knowledge to herself that Stephen was a gen- 
tleman in his feelings, and that, no matter 
what his sentiments might be toward her — if 
they existed still and were unchanged from 
what they had once been — he, at least, knew 
how to exercise that control over them which 
a gentleman should be capable of. Up to 
now he had never said one word to her that 
any other person might not have uttered who 
had found himself thrown into her society on 
board the Emperor of the Moon, nor had 
he unduly sought her presence, or, being in it, 
endeavoured to remain as long as it was pos- 
sible. 

Nothing of much note had occurred thus 
far on the voyage, it has been said, yet there 
had of course been some of those incidents 
without which no voyage of any distance is 
ever made. Once through the bay, and as 
they ran swiftly south, they had found them- 
selves in a dense fog — a most unusual thing in 


AN OCEAN WAIF.’ 


75 


such a latitude and at this time of the year; 
then, upon the top of that fog there had 
sprung up a stiff breeze which gradually de- 
veloped into a gale, so that, from clewing the 
main royal to furling the top-gallant sails of 
the mizzen and fore masts was but a moment, 
as was the next action of taking in the main 
top-gallant sail. And thus, ere long, Bella 
had her first experience of what a storm at sea 
was like, while, as she heard the live stock 
grunting and squealing forward, the ship’s 
furniture more or less thundering about 
wherever it could get loose, the piano — on 
which only the night before she had played 
the accompaniment to her uncle’s deep bass 
voice as he trolled out, “ In Cellar cool ” 
— thumping heavily against the bulkhead 
to which it was insecurely lashed, and 
the cries of the sailors as they uttered 
words which might not perhaps be properly 
denominated as “ cries ” alone, she began to 
wonder how her darling Gilbert could ever 
have chosen such a calling. Also, the stream- 
ing planks when at last she ventured on deck, 
the dull, sepia clouds, and the mournful look 

of the Emperor herself, under reefed top- 
6 


;6 


THE SEAFARERS. 


sails, fore-sail, foretop-mast stay-sail, fore- 
sail main-stay sail, and spanker, as she rolled 
and lolloped about in the troughs and hollows 
of the sea, and took the water first over one 
bulwark and then over another — and then, 
for a change, over her head — only increased 
that wonder. 

Yet, lo! the next morning — for the sea is 
a great quick-change artist, volatile and vari- 
able as a flirt, though often enough as tragic 
as Medea herself — when Bella looked out of 
her scuttle, against which the green water 
now slapped violently, but not viciously, all 
was changed. A bright sun shone down 
from the heavens, the ship had still got a roll 
on her, though not an unpleasant one — and 
the girl felt hungry; which was as good 
a sign that the storm was over as could well 
be wished for. 

“ It has been a rough night,” Stephen 
Charke said, as he rose from his breakfast on 
her entrance to the saloon, helped her to her 
chair, and hade the steward bring coffee and 
hot rolls and bacon — all of which were already 
perfuming the air. “Your uncle is now on 
deck. We have been there all night.” 


AN OCEAN WAIF.’ 


77 


“ I thought/’ said Bella, pouring out her 
coffee and smiling pleasantly since now all 
fear had departed from her mind that Charke 
would misconstrue any pleasant marks of in- 
timacy she might be disposed to graciously 
bestow on him, “ that I was at the end of my 
journey — indeed, that we all were! that it 
was brought to a sudden end, accomplished. 
That ” 

“ That,” said Stephen, smiling, too, sadly 
enough, yet, by doing so, enhancing wonder- 
fully his dark, handsome looks, “ that perhaps 
Mr. Bampfyld might miss his bride! ” 

For a moment Bella’s hazel eyes flashed at 
him — and he thought how wondrously beau- 
tiful they looked as they did so — while a seri- 
ous expression came on his face. Then, after 
pausing a moment, as though scarcely know- 
ing what answer to make, or whether she 
should make one at all, she said: “ Yes, that 
he might miss his bride. My death, and that 
alone, could cause him to do so.” And as 
she spoke she looked Stephen straight in 
the face, feeling again — which she regretted 
— that old sentiment of disapproval at 
being in the ship with him which she had 


THE SEAFARERS. 


78 

come to believe she had conquered and sub- 
dued. 

“ His death would cause the same result,” 
he answered, speaking slowly, hesitatingly, 
for, in truth, he felt as if he were treading on 
dangerous ground. In a moment he found 
such was the case. 

“ Mr. Charke,” the girl said, very gently 
now, “ I should be so much obliged to you if, 
during the remainder of our journey together, 
you will neither discuss my affairs, nor those 
of my future husband, nor him. It will make 
the voyage pleasanter to me if you will do so.” 

As she spoke the bell struck two, and, 
since the watches had been disorganized by 
the storm of the night, the sound meant that 
Captain Pooley would now come below for his 
breakfast and his place above be taken by the 
mate. Therefore he turned toward the 
stairs, muttering, “ I beg your pardon, I am 
sure. Pray forgive me-^I will not offend 
again.” Then he disappeared on to the 
deck. 

Yet an hour later he stood by her side be- 
neath the awning, and now he was directing 
her attention to something that, a mile off, 


AN OCEAN WAIF.’ 


79 


was the object of the attention of every one 
on board. The captain and his wife were 
both regarding it fixedly; so, too, were the 
men forward, the only persons not present 
being, of course, the watch below and the 
second mate, Mr. Fagg, who had now 
turned in. 

“ What do you make it out to be? ” asked 
Pooley of Stephen, as they still gazed at it. 
“ It is not a baby nor a child. Yet it is 
scarcely bigger than the first. Can it be a 
dog? ” 

“ No/’ said Charke authoritatively, as 
though his younger eyesight was not to be 
disputed; “ it is either a young tiger or a pan- 
ther cub afloat on a water-cask. There has 
been a wreck during the night, I expect, and 
it has got adrift. Perhaps,” he said, “ if we 
cruise around a bit we may find some human 
life to save.” 

“ How should it be aboard any ship? ” 
asked the captain. “ Who takes tigers or 
panthers for passengers? ” 

“ Plenty of people,” Charke answered 
quietly. “ They are brought home to sell to 
the menageries and zoos. A cub like that is 


8 o 


THE SEAFARERS. 


worth £20 — therefore worth looking after. 
Guffies bring them home sometimes; sailors 
often.” Meanwhile he added, “ According to 
the set of the waves that thing will be along- 
side in a quarter of an hour. I’ll bet a day’s 
pay it strikes the ship betwixt the main and 
mizzen channels.” 

“ Oh,” exclaimed Mrs. Pooley and Bella 
together, “ do let us save it and get it on 
board! It will,” said the latter, “be such a 
lovely plaything! And such a curiosity! 
Fancy a girl from West Kensington who has 
never had a plaything or pet more stupen- 
dous than a canary, a cat, or a fox terrier hav- 
ing a tiger! Why! ” she exclaimed, with a 
laugh which gave to her short upper lip' an ap- 
pearance of tantalizing beauty, “ Una will be 
outdone by me, a girl of the nineteenth cen- 
tury! ” 

Tantalizing or not as that smile might be, 
it led to the salvation of the cub, for with a 
swift look at the captain, which was meant 
to ask for his assent, Clarke called to one 
of the sailors to get over into the channels 
and down on to the fourth futtock, he telling 
him with wonderful accuracy the exact spot 


“ AN OCEAN WAIF.’ 


81 


where the water-cask would strike the now 
almost stationary ship. 

Five minutes later, that which he calcu- 
lated with such precision came to pass; the 
cask touched the ship’s side almost imme- 
diately beneath the man’s feet, and in an- 
other moment the cub had been clawed by its 
loose skin in the exact middle of its back and 
handed up, squealing, spitting, and scratch- 
ing, on to the deck. 

“The little beast!” exclaimed the mate, 
as he sucked the back of his hand where the 
creature had clawed him, “ the little beast! 
This is a pretty reward for saving it from 
drowning! ” and then he administered a sound 
kick to the thing as it lay on the deck — so 
sound and rousing a one, indeed, that it 
emitted a grunt of pain, and with its claws, 
about as big or bigger than those of a good- 
sized cat, endeavoured to fasten on to his 
legs. Also from its yellow, scintillating eyes 
it sent forth a glance of such malignant feroc- 
ity as, had it been more fully grown, might 
have alarmed a braver man than he. 

“ Oh, how cruel to kick that poor little 
half-drowned thing!” Bella exclaimed re- 


82 


THE SEAFARERS. 


proachfully. “ It never meant to hurt you, 
only it was frightened. Poor little thing! ” 
she said again, and even as she spoke she 
knelt down on the deck and stroked the wet 
striped ball that lay there. And it seemed as 
if her gentleness had some power to soothe 
whatever ferocious instincts that, still dor- 
mant and undeveloped at present, were 
nevertheless within it. For, instead of now 
using its paws as weapons with which to 
strike out and attack anything near it, it 
played with her as a kitten plays with a ball, 
tapping at her hand and trying to catch it, 
and pushing and kicking against her with its 
hind legs. 

“ You see/’ she said, looking up at Charke 
with a glance in which she could not disguise 
her disapproval of his violence, “ you see, 
at present, at least, it does not try to harm 
those who treat it well.” 

“ Yes,” he said, “ I see.” Then he added, 
half bitterly, half morosely, “ No one doubts 
your powers of fascination, Miss Waldron.” 


CHAPTER VIII. 


“ HIS NAME IS WHAT? ” 

The saving of this creature, which Bella 
elected to call Bengalee, because she said she 
was sure it came from Bengal, and also be- 
cause she had once sung a song of that name, 
was followed by no other events of any im- 
portance whatever. Nor need their stay at 
the Cape be dwelt upon, because it consisted 
simply of various visits which were paid in the 
outskirts by Mr. and Mrs. Pooley, accom- 
panied by Bella; by the unloading of a con- 
siderable portion of the cargo of the Em- 
peror of the Moon, and by the refilling of 
the hold with other goods saleable in India. 

And now they were once more on their 
way toward the equator, going due north 
instead of due south, as when they had last 
approached it, and with a cool southern 
breeze driving the Emperor along under 
full sail. Yet so gentle was this breeze that 

83 


8 4 


THE SEAFARERS. 


even if there had been any who were not sail- 
ors in the ship — which Bella, as well as Mrs. 
Pooley, might now be well considered to be, 
after the length of voyage she had already 
gone through, added to a few extra days and 
nights of turbulence and storm — scarcely 
would they have felt any inconvenience from 
the motion. Thus, therefore, with occasion- 
ally a dropping of the wind which reduced 
their speed a few knots, and sometimes with 
a total drop in it so that they did not progress 
a knot an hour, while the ship swung slowly 
round and round the compass, they found 
themselves, at the time which is about to be 
described in about latitude 20° io' south, 
and longitude 6o° 50' east, or as near as may 
be about two hundred and fifty miles to the 
east of Mauritius. 

Wherefore, since the Emperor of the 
Moon has arrived thus far in the Indian 
Ocean, there has to be set down a series of 
strange events which befell her of so remark- 
able and peculiar a nature that one wonders 
that those events have never been chronicled 
before. For, far different from the ordinary 
stress and disasters that overtake ships at sea 


HIS NAME IS— WHAT? 


85 


were those which have to be described; far 
different from those which the recorders of 
maritime calamities are in the habit of chroni- 
cling either in romance or in dry-as-dust de- 
scription of facts. 

All of which the writer now proceeds to 
relate, beginning with a strange coincidence 
that perhaps none but those readers who in 
their voyage through life have recognised 
that truth is more strange than the wildest 
fiction will perhaps be willing to allow as 
within the bounds of likelihood. However, 
to make a beginning, since the coincidence is 
true. 

The Emperor of the Moon was in those 
latitudes above described, when, it being a 
bright, hot morning, with the sea already 
gleaming like molten brass, and the pitch be- 
tween the planks already of the consistency 
of putty, while the brasswork was in such a 
state of heat that it was unsafe to touch it 
unless one wanted to leave the skin of their 
palms and fingers behind them, the lookout 
on the fo’castle head yelled, “ Sail right 
ahead!” Now, since nothing of this kind, 
neither steamer nor sailing vessel, had been 


86 


THE SEAFARERS. 


seen since they had northed out of the west 
wind drift, and since also the liners were rarely 
found outside the equatorial current, this 
cry was sufficient to fill every one on board 
with a considerable amount of interest and 
excitement. 

“ Where away? ” called out Charke, who 
was on the poop at this moment; the cap- 
tain, his wife, and Bella being below at break- 
fast, and ere the man could repeat that 
the sail was right ahead and about five 
miles off, all those three others had come 
on deck. 

“ How pretty it looks, shining in the 
sun! ” the girl exclaimed, as she regarded the 
sail through a pair of marine glasses which 
her uncle had placed at her disposal, “ and 
how the sail glistens! It looks like a star.” 

“Humph!” said the captain as he 
looked through his binocular, “ like a star! 
True enough, so it does. And,” he said, ad- 
dressing the two mates who were standing 
near him, “ we have seen such stars here- 
about before, eh? Do you think,” he went 
on, addressing Charke, lowering his voice a 
little, “ it is one of those? ” 


HIS NAME IS— WHAT? 


87 


“ Don’t know,” Charke ,said, working his 
own glass a good deal. “ Can’t see how it 
can be. Too far to the east. Bussorah, 
Muscat, Ras-el-Hadd Mohamrah, Oman — 
that’s their mark. What should they be do- 
ing here? ” 

“ All the same,” exclaimed Pooley, “ it’s 
the rig, and the true shape, that of a jargonel 
pear cut in half. I do believe that’s what it 
is. They might have been blown out of their 
course, you know; or chased by one of Her 
Majesty’s ships. What do you think? ” 

“ I think,” said Charke, who always spoke 
of everything connected with his calling in 
the most unemotional manner possible, “ I 
think we shall know when we come up to her, 
as we must do in about half an hour. Also,” 
he continued, with a subacid tone in his 
voice, while his eye glinted sideways toward 
where Bella stood, “ we are not naval officers, 
but only humble merchant seamen. There 
is no prize money for us, therefore it is not 
our business.” 

Bella had, of course, been listening atten- 
tively to all that had been said since she had 
come on deck and run lightly up the poop- 


88 


THE SEAFARERS. 


ladder, and now, hearing those words about 
“ naval officers ” and “ prize money,” her in- 
terest became more intense than before. 

“ Oh, uncle! ” she exclaimed, putting her 
hand on his sleeve, “ what does it all mean? 
— naval officers and prize money! That's not 
one of Her Majesty’s ships, surely.” 

“ No, my dear,” the captain replied, “ that 
is not one of Her Majesty’s ships. But I shall 
be precious surprised if she doesn’t turn out 
to be one of the very craft that Her Majesty’s 
ships are always on the lookout for here- 
about, only rather closer in toward the 
African coast than this. She has all the build 
of an Arab slave dhow.” 

“Ay!” exclaimed Charke, who was still 
using his glass freely from where he stood 
behind them, “ ay, and something more 
than the build, too. If I’m not mistaken, her 
hatches have open gratings. What do you 
say, Fagg? ” turning to his junior. 

“ Seems so, sir,” said that young officer, 
who never wasted more words than neces- 
sary. “ Though I’m not quite sure.” 

“ I am,” replied Charke. “ I can see the 
grating slits perfectly as we get nearer.” 


HIS NAME IS— WHAT? 


“ What does that mean? ” asked Bella, to 
whom this conversation conveyed nothing. 

“ It means,” said Pooley, “ that there is 
live stock below those gratings; black cattle, 
as they used to be called on the West Coast. 
Ordinary hatches, to simply cover up cargo, 
are not made to let the air in. That can do 
without breathing.” 

“ How awful!” Bella exclaimed, while 
through her mind there ran recollections of 
what she had heard or read casually of the 
slave trade in old days, and also of the horrors 
of the Northwest passage. “ How awful! ” 

“ Bad enough,” replied Pooley, “ though 
not as bad as the old West African days, nor 
as you might think. The slave trade is a 
valuable one in this ocean, and those who are 
carried in the dhows are well enough fed. 
Rice, Indian corn, maize, cassada, are given 
them for food, and they have mats and mat- 
ting galore to sleep on. Persian merchants 
and Arab gentlemen don’t buy starved scare- 
crows for their domestic servants.” 

“ Whatever she is, and whatever her cargo 
is, there’s something wrong with her! ” the 
chief mate suddenly exclaimed. “ She’s off 


9 o 


THE SEAFARERS. 


the wind now, and the fellow who was at the 
helm has left it. It is abandoned. By Jove! ” 
he exclaimed, “ he is lying wriggling by it. 
What on earth is the matter? ” 

“ And,” added the second mate, “ there’s 
a negro woman waving a red scarf. Some- 
thing’s wrong there, no doubt.” 

“ We shall be up to them in ten minutes,” 
the master said, all bustle and excitement 
now. “ Let go the fore-tack! Stand by 
to lower the starboard quarter boat!” and 
as he spoke the men of the watch who had 
been leaning on the fife rail rushed to the falls 
to be ready to let the boat sink to the water 
when the proper moment came. 

To Bella this seemed the most exciting 
moment of her life. There, in front of her, 
was one of those vessels the name of which 
or class of which was almost unknown to her, 
except that, from odds and ends of conversa- 
tion with her lover, she had gathered that 
these were the things in the chasing of which 
his existence was to be passed until they met 
once more at Bombay. There, on this glis- 
tening, glassy sea the dhow lay, her one 
mast raking toward her bow instead of her 


“HIS NAME IS— WHAT?” 


91 


stern, as is the case with most vessels of the 
Western world, her long, white triangle of a 
sail unfilled and flapping listlessly. A dhow 
— perhaps a slaver, as her uncle and the 
mates had said — a dhow in sore distress, with, 
writhing by her helm, the man who had lately 
been steering her; and, over her bow, that 
negro woman waving frantically the old scarf. 
Excitement there was, indeed, in all this, 
causing her, even as she eagerly watched 
the vessel they were approaching, to sud- 
denly wonder how the striking up of the band 
at a ball, or the ring of the prompter’s bell ere 
the curtain rose on a drama that all London 
was flocking to see, could have ever stirred 
her pulses. What were they, those trivialities, 
to the sailing, glistening face of this eastern 
sea; to the horror and the cruelties that this 
now tranquil ocean’s bosom had enfolded 
through the ages! 

Still the negress waved, not recognising 
perhaps in her blind, besotted, dumb-animal- 
like ignorance that help was at hand; and 
still, through their glasses, they could see 
that he who had steered the dhow now lay 

motionless. Then at her ear, as the Em- 
7 


92 


THE SEAFARERS. 


peror came within six cable lengths of the 
dhow, her uncle gave a few rapid orders; the 
second mate, accompanied by the boat’s crew, 
jumped into the quarter boat; the man at 
the wheel luffed until the vessel had no mo- 
tion in her; swiftly the boat was lowered, the 
rudder and thole pins shipped, and she was 
on her way to the dhow. 

“What do you make of it?” the master 
roared to Fagg ten minutes later, as by then 
the Emperor of the Moon had come closer 
to the dhow through the motion of the swell. 
“ What?” 

“ I don’t know what to make of it, sir,” 
the second mate called back. “ The man 
who was steering is, I think, dead. He does 
not move, and there is a white film over his 
eyes. The woman who waved the handker- 
chief seems well, but I cannot understand 
what she means. She does nothing but howl 
and point below.” 

“ Are the hatches grated? ” 

“ Yes, sir. And there are four negroes be- 
neath them. It is a slave dhow, for certain. 
The negroes are shackled and handcuffed.” 

“ Have you searched further? ” 


HIS NAME IS — WHAT ? 


93 


“ I am going to do so now. The ship is 
settling, I think. There is a kind of poop 
superstructure forming cabins.” 

“ Search at once. Then bring all alive on 
board us.” 

In a moment Mr. Fagg had disappeared 
into what he had termed a “ kind of poop 
superstructure,” and while he was in it all on 
board the Emperor were occupied in specu- 
lating on what could have brought a slaver 
so far to the east and out of her ordinary 
course, and also in wondering what the mate 
would find on board during his further search. 

But that wonderment was soon to be re- 
solved, for ere Mr. Fagg had been out of 
their sight five minutes he rushed back from 
the superstructure to the deck, and bawled 
through his hands: 

“ There is a young naval officer lying in 
the poop cabin; and he is slightly wounded, 
and his name is — is ” 

“What?” roared Pooley, astonished at 
the mate’s hesitation. 

“ It is marked on the rim of his cap — in- 
side. It is — I — I am afraid it is Miss Wal- 
dron’s fiance. The — the — name is Bampfyld.” 


CHAPTER IX. 


RESCUED FROM THE DHOW. 

“ Come over, come home 
Through the salt sea foam.” 

Never perhaps, on all that old highway 
of the waters, that silent road along which so 
many had steered their course to fabled Om- 
ruz and to Ind; nor amidst fierce sea-fights 
’twixt Arab and Persian, or Arab and Briton 
in later centuries, nor in the howl of storm 
when the waters closed around the ship- 
wrecked and doomed, had there arisen a more 
piercing shriek than that which now issued 
from Bella Waldron’s blanched lips. 

“ My God! ” she screamed, repeating the 
second mate’s words. “ The name is Bamp- 
fyld! Oh, it is Gilbert! Gilbert! There is 
no other in the navy list. Let me go to him, 
uncle.” 

“ No, no,” the master said, while good 
Mrs. Pooley put her arms round the girl as 

94 


RESCUED FROM THE DHOW. 


95 


she stood there by the poop rails and endeav- 
oured to calm and soothe her. “ No, no, 
Bella. They will bring him on board directly; 
then ” — and in his desire to save the girl’s 
heart he raised the ghost of a smile to his lips 
— “ then you shall nurse him till he’s well. 
Yet,” he muttered to Charke, as he walked 
over to where the first mate stood, “ yet how 
on earth does he find himself in that infernal 
dhow! ” 

“ Heaven knows,” the other answered. 
“ But perhaps ’tis not so strange, after all. 
There may have been a fight between his 
cruiser and the slaver — though there’s not 
much fight in them when they get a sight of 
the British flag — or he may have been sent 
to board her and got cut down, or half a 
hundred things. All of which,” he added, 
with his now usual cynicism, “ are equally 
likely or unlikely. Anyhow, he is here, or 
will be in a few moments, and we shall have 
him for a passenger to Bombay. Your niece 
is in luck, sir,” and he turned on his heel and 
went down the ladder to the deck to see to 
the raising of the boat which was now making 
its way to the ship. 


9 6 


THE SEAFARERS. 


To Stephen Charke, still loving the girl as 
madly as he did, still raging inwardly at the 
knowledge that every knot which the ship 
made was bringing her nearer to the man 
who, as he considered, had torn her from him, 
this incident seemed the last and most crush- 
ing blow of all. God knows what hopes the 
man had cherished in his bosom since first he 
had learnt that Bella was to be a passenger in 
her uncle’s ship for about four months; what 
ideas might have been revolving in his mind 
as to whether in those four months some- 
thing extraordinary, something almost un- 
heard of — not to be dreamt of or foreseen — 
might happen to give him one more chance 
of winning her. He was a romantically- 
minded man, a man with so rich an imagina- 
tion that to him there came sometimes ideas 
which few are ever burdened with. And in 
that full and teeming imagination there had 
been pictured to him visions of the Em- 
peror of the Moon being wrecked, and Bella 
and he alone spared — he, of course, saving her 
at the peril of his own life, and winning her 
away from her more aristocratic lover by so 
doing. Or he dreamt of that lover being 


RESCUED FROM THE DHOW. 


97 


himself wrecked and lost, or pierced by an 
Arab spear in some affray, or shot in a hand- 
to-hand fight with a particularly bold slaver 
(though all the time he knew well enough that 
the slavers had no fight in them), or — or — or 
— he cherished any mad vision that first rose 
to his brain. 

And now — now — this very man, this suc- 
cessful rival, this aristocratic naval officer, 
with his high birth and future peerage, was 
actually being brought on board the ship 
where the woman was whom they both loved 
— brought on board “ slightly wounded,” and 
his own last chance thus gone. Gone for ever 
now! Perhaps, therefore, it was no wonder 
he should bite his lip and smother unholy 
words deep down in his throat; perhaps, too, 
he merits compassion. He had loved this 
girl fondly since first he had set eyes on 
her, and once, at one time, he thought 
he had almost won her. Then this other 
had come in his way, had swept him out 
of Bella’s heart, or the approach to it, and 
his chance was over. Yet once again they 
had met through an almost unheard of 
and scarcely to be imagined opportunity, 


THE SEAFARERS. 


and — lo! here was his successful rival once 
more at hand to thwart him. It was hard on 
him, or, as he muttered to himself, “ damned 
rough.” 

The quarter boat was coming back to the 
ship now, Fagg steering her, while between 
him and the stroke oar there lay the body of 
the young naval officer, clad in his “ whites.” 
And again/ as Bella, madly whispering “ Gil- 
bert, Gilbert, my darling!” stood by the 
head of the accommodation ladder — which had 
been lowered while the boat was gone to the 
dhow — the men brought her lover gently up 
and laid him on the deck under the awning. 

“ Oh, Gilbert ! ” she cried again, as now 
she bent over him, stroking his hair, which 
on the left side of his head was all matted with 
thick, congealed blood, “ oh, Gilbert, to 
think that we should meet thus! Sir,” she 
screamed to Fagg, who was about to descend 
again to the boat to fetch off the others still in 
the dhow, “where is he wounded? Where? 
Ffave you had time to discover? ” 

“ I have looked him over, Miss Waldron, 
and, to tell you the truth, I do not think there 
is much the matter with him.” 


RESCUED FROM THE DHOW. 


99 


“ Thank God! Oh, thank God!” 

“ That blood,” the second mate con- 
tinued, “ comes from a heavy contusion at 
the side of his head, but the skull is uninjured. 
Also, there is no concussion — observe, the 
pupils of the eyes are not at all dilated.” 
Then he turned away and went swiftly down 
the ladder again, muttering that if he was to 
save the negroes there was no time to be 
wasted. The dhow was filling fast, he added; 
there was a big hole in her below the water- 
line, and a quarter of an hour would see the 
end of her. 

And now Gilbert was carried to the cabin 
corresponding to Bella’s on the port side of 
the vessel, abreast of the saloon, and Mrs. 
Pooley, with the steward, went in to undress 
him, telling Bella that as soon as he was com- 
fortably placed in the bunk she should come 
and take her place by his side. Whereupon 
the girl, distracted by both her hopes and 
fears — hopes that the second mate was right 
in his surmises as to her lover’s wounds, and 
fears that he was wrong — sat herself down on 
the great locker that was in the gangway and 
gave herself up to tearful meditations. 


100 


THE SEAFARERS. 


“Ah! if he should die,” she murmured, 
“ if he should die ! Then my heart will 
break.” 

But, as you shall see, and have undoubted- 
ly divined, Gilbert was not to die then, at 
least. 

By this time other things were taking 
place above which were almost as startling 
as the discovery of Lieutenant Bampfyld in 
that slave dhow; startling, not only be- 
cause of the unexplained cause that had 
brought the Arab slaver into this portion of 
the Indian Ocean, but also because of the 
strange and mysterious behaviour of those 
others who were now to be conveyed on 
board the Emperor of the Moon. Ere 
they came, however, Mr. Fagg had sent over 
information surprising enough in itself, and 
sufficient to prepare all on board the ship for 
what a little later they were to see. 

“ The owner, if he is the owner,” he cried, 
“ the man who fell down while steering, is 
dead. He is stiffening. I presume I had 
best leave him to go down with the dhow.” 

“Ay!” called back Pooley, “ay! What 
about the others? ” 


RESCUED FROM THE DHOW. 


IOI 


“ I cannot make them out. The negress 
seems well enough, but terribly frightened. 
As for the four men below, they all appear 
blind. We have taken their shackles off, and 
they grope their way about as though in the 
dark. My men have to lead them up the lad- 
ders; yet their eyes look clear enough.” 

“ Have they been kept in the dark, think 
you, and is the sun dazzling them now? ” 

“ No, no. The open gratings have fur- 
nished the part of the hold they were in with 
plenty of light.” He paused a moment, and 
those in the Emperor saw him gazing 
down steadfastly to that hold; then he called 
again: 

“ We must come away now, sir. The 
water is pouring in. The dhow will not swim 
much longer.” 

“ Do so,” answered back Pooley, and five 
minutes afterward the boat was on her way 
to the ship laden with the rescued negroes; 
and Mr. Fagg had proved right in his sur- 
mise as to the necessity for leaving the slaver 
at once. Ere they came on board she was 
observed to heel over a little to starboard, 
then to further do so with a jerk, then sud- 


102 


THE SEAFARERS. 


denly she righted until she was on a level keel 
— and next sank suddenly like a stone, the 
body of the dead man who had fallen down 
while steering alone remaining above the 
heaving waters, and being swirled round and 
round in the whirlpool caused by the wreck, 
until it, too, went down. 

Creeping up the companion, their hands 
directed to the side ropes by the sailors, feel- 
ing the steps with their huge splay feet — as 
a mule feels its way along the thin line of in- 
secure path that rounds the smooth face of a 
precipice — those stricken men came; huge, 
splendid specimens of the swart negroes of 
Wyassa, and Wabiyou, and Wagindo, whom 
the Arab slaver ships from Kilwa below Zan- 
zibar and sends off to Bussorah and Moham- 
ra, whence they often reach the more distant 
Turkish harems. Now, looking at them as 
they stood on the deck of the Emperor of 
the Moon, it seemed as though their course 
was almost run. For, though these men 
would never more be slaves to Arab, or Per- 
sian, or Turk, of what use to himself or any- 
one else is an unhappy blind negro, who, to 
exist at all, must work like a dray-horse? 


RESCUED FROM THE DHOW. 


103 


“ Poor wretches! ” said Pooley to Charke, 
as they both stood regarding these blacks, 
“ see how the shackles have eaten into their 
ankles. Poor brutes! They say that some- 
times these fellows sell themselves willingly 
into slavery. I doubt much if these have 
done so. Ah, well, we must take them with 
us to Bombay, where, at least, they will be 
free. I wish,” he added, “ we could com- 
municate with them somehow — learn who 
and what they are.” 

“ Perhaps,” said Charke quietly, unemo- 
tionally as ever, “ Lieutenant Bampfyld can 
tell us when he comes to. Since he was in 
the dhow he probably knows what she was 
and where she came from.” Then, breaking 
off to cast his eye around, he said: “ Sir, there 
is a breeze coming aft. Shall we not 
make sail? ” 

“Ay!” cried Pooley, springing to the 
poop, “ ay, we have had little enough wind 
for some days; summon the watch.” 

A few moments later the order to square 
the yards thundered along the deck; the men 
rushed to the braces; away up from the 
dusky wizard south the wind was coming as 


104 


THE SEAFARERS. 


they fisted the canvas, and the Emperor, 
heeling over, gathered way and sped once 
more toward India; gathered way faster 
and faster as jib and top-sails were loosed and 
sheeted home, fore and main top-gallant 
braced sharp up, and main-sail, main-royal and 
mizzen top-gallant sails set, as well as jibs and 
stay-sails. She talked, as the sailors say, as 
she went through the water; she hummed 
and sung beneath the breeze that came up 
from far down by the antarctic circle — a 
breeze whose cool breath was gone now, and 
was, instead, perfumed by the warm spicy 
odours of Mauritius and Reunion. Away 
over the vast waste of golden waters she flew, 
and the master, standing on the poop, called 
down to his first mate joyfully, to ask him if 
this would not do well enough for Bombay? 

“Ay, ay, sir!” answered Charke, turning 
round from giving orders to the men aloft to 
answer his chief, “ ay, ay, sir! ” 

While to himself he muttered: “ Bombay! 
India! Well, when we are there all is ended 
for me.” 


CHAPTER X. 


THE COMING TERROR. 

The sailor is, as all the world knows, a 
light-hearted, mercurial creature. Face to 
face with death in some form or other during 
every hour of his life — although often the 
near presence of death is neither known nor 
suspected — he is only too elated and happy 
when momentarily without anything to cause 
him anxiety. Such was the case now with 
Captain Pooley, since his beautiful ship was 
rapidly picking up all the time she had lost by 
lack of wind and delays, and since, as he jovi- 
ally phrased it, “ all his new passengers were 
doing well.” 

“ First and foremost,” he said that even- 
ing, as he sat at the head of his table with 
Bella in the place of honour on his right 
hand, his wife on the left, and Mr. Fagg op- 
posite to him, while his honest, sunburnt face 
glanced rubicund beneath the inch of white 

105 


I0 6 THE SEAFARERS. 

under his hair which his cap had preserved 
from the sun, “ Bella’s young man is all 
right. Then, Bella’s new plaything, the tiger, 
takes kindly to its lodgings — though you will 
have to sell it, my child, directly we get to 
Bombay, and distribute the money it fetches 
amongst the men. Then, those wretched 
slaves! even they will eat and drink — won’t 
they, Fagg? ” 

“ Not much of that, sir,” the second mate 
answered, who was eating and drinking 
pretty well himself, however; “ they don’t 
care to do much of either. They make a 
good deal of moaning up in that deck cabin 
forward which you have given them. The 
woman, however, seems all right. I suppose 
the lieutenant has not been able to tell you 
much about the dhow yet, Miss Waldron? ” 
he asked, bending forward a little as he ad- 
dressed her. 

“ At present,” she replied, “ we have had 
little conversation. He says, however, that 
he sent me a telegram from Bombay, telling 
me not to start, as the Briseus was coming 
down here. He only came to an hour ago, 
however,” she went on, while a ravishing 


THE COMING TERROR. 


107 


blush swept over her face, “ and we — we — 
have had so much to ” 

“ Spare her, Fagg,” said Pooley, with a 
laugh, and passing the claret at the same 
time. “ Spare her. Suppose you woke up 
one fine afternoon and found your sweetheart 
bending over you in your berth and whisper- 
ing all sorts of endearing things in your ears, 
as well as kis ” 

“ Uncle! ” shrieked Bella, while Mrs. 
Pooley touched her husband’s arm reprov- 
ingly with her forefinger, and Mr. Fagg 
hid his face behind the vase of brilliant 
Cape gooseberries on the table. “ Uncle! ” 
Whereupon the bluff, good-natured sailor de- 
sisted, and began to speculate on the blind- 
ness with which the rescued negroes were at- 
tacked, and on that attack being, as he im- 
agined, a recent one. 

“ They capture these poor wretches in- 
land,” he went on musingly, “ in the big lake 
region as often as not; but, as far as I have 
ever heard, blindness is not one of their afflic- 
tions. Moreover, these Arab owners and cap- 
tains wouldn’t buy blind slaves either for sell- 
ing farther north or for using as sailors in 


io8 


THE SEAFARERS. 


their dhows. Therefore I take it this blind- 
ness must have come on them since they were 
shipped. That’s strange, isn’t it?” and as 
he spoke he rose and went to his neat mahog- 
any bookcase which was securely fastened to 
one of the saloon’s bulkheads, and took down 
the two medical books which he possessed — 
the one dealing with all general human com- 
plaints to which our flesh is heir, and the 
other more specially with tropical diseases. 
Yet neither under the heading of “ Eye ” or 
“ Blindness ” or “ Optics ” could he find 
aught that bore upon the subject, nor in his 
book on tropical complaints could he dis- 
cover any information that might enlighten 
him as to why the four negroes should be so 
stricken. 

He spoke again, however, after turning 
over the leaves of these erudite volumes a 
second time, saying: “ Fever, I know, some- 
times produces blindness as an after-effect, 
yet — well, we have all seen these fellows, 
and there’s no fever in them, I should say. 
Oh, confound this confusion of tongues! ” he 
exclaimed irritably, “ if it did not exist we 
could find out so much from the sufferers 


THE COMING TERROR. 


IO9 


themselves. Bella, our only hope is in your 
patient. If Lieutenant Bampfyld can’t tell 
us something, we shall never know who these 
men and the woman are, where they came 
from, what is the matter with them, and to 
whom the dhow belonged. Can he speak 
anything but English, child?” 

“ He knows some Hindustanee,” Bella re- 
plied, “ and, I think he said, some words of 
Swahili. He has taken up Eastern languages 
in the service, which was one of the reasons 
for his being appointed to the Briseus. 
He may be some help. At least he can 
tell us how he came on board that horrid 
ship.” 

As she spoke eight bells struck on deck, 
and as the sound came through the skylight 
both she and Mr. Fagg rose, the girl doing 
so because it was the hour at which she in- 
tended to visit Gilbert again, and the latter 
because it was time to relieve Stephen 
Charke, who would now come below to take 
his supper. Also, Bella had fixed this time 
for paying her last evening visit to her future 
husband, because she knew that the first mate 
would then descend, and she was never now 


no 


THE SEAFARERS. 


desirous of being more in his company than 
necessary. 

She therefore left the saloon before Fagg 
could have relieved Charke, and, going to the 
cabin in which Gilbert Bampfyld lay, pushed 
back the curtain that hung at the door and 
went in to him, observing, as she did so, that 
he was awake and lying gazing upwards. 
Also, she saw that he smiled happily on per- 
ceiving her, and whispered the word “ Dar- 
ling ” as she advanced to his bedside. 

“ You are better, dearest,” she said, bend- 
ing over him, and putting her hand on his 
forehead, which was cool and moist. “ Much 
better. Aunty will come soon with fresh 
bandages for your poor head, and then you 
will have a good night’s refreshing sleep. 
And to-morrow, perhaps, you will be able to 
tell us how you came to be in that hideous 
slaver. Oh, Bertie ” — for so she often 
called him — “ what a mercy it was that we 
found you as we did! And what a miracle 
that we should have met thus! Home-keep- 
ing and narrow-minded people would say, if 
they read it all in a book, that such a thing 
was unnatural and impossible.” 


THE COMING TERROR. 


Ill 


Their first meeting; their joy at discover- 
ing that they had come together again in this 
marvellous manner; their rapture when, a 
few hours before, Gilbert Bampfyld had 
emerged from his stupor and unconsciousness, 
have not been forgotten, although the de- 
scription of them has been omitted — omitted 
for the simple reason that most of us have 
been, or are, lovers, most of us have known in 
our time, or know now — and those are the 
happy ones — the sweet, unutterable joy with 
which such meetings are welcomed. Who 
does not remember the sudden, quickened 
beat of the heart at some period of their ex- 
istence when they were once more face to 
face with those they loved the best of all in 
this world, the creature upon whom their 
thoughts were forever dwelling, and from 
whom those thoughts, however wandering 
they had heretofore been, had learnt at last 
to never roam? Picture to yourself, there- 
fore, what rhapsody was Bella's, when, for- 
getting everything else but that she held her 
lover to her breast, she wept over his salva- 
tion from an awful, swift, impending death. 
Picture also to yourself the delirious joy 


1 12 


THE SEAFARERS. 


which coursed through Gilbert’s unclouded 
mind as he found himself in her arms — with 
her — close to her. Picture this, and no fur- 
ther description is needed of their meeting in 
that cool, darkened cabin of the old ship. 
Image for yourself what your own ecstasy 
would have been in such or kindred circum- 
stances, and you have the knowledge of what 
theirs was. 

“ Darling,” he said again now, as she held 
to his lips a cooling drink that she had brought 
into the cabin with her, “ darling, I can tell 
you in half a dozen sentences or less ” 

“ No,” she said, “ no, not now. To- 
morrow, when you have slept — — ” 

“ Yes, now. Why, dearest, I am well. 
I could take the middle watch to-night, if 
necessary, or — or — do anything that a sailor 
may be called on to do. And as for finding 
me in that dhow, why, it’s the simplest thing 
on earth — or the waters. Listen: The 
Briseus, as you would have learnt by that 
telegram I sent you if you had ever received 
it, was suddenly ordered to join the Cape 
Squadron — dhow-catching. And I can tell 
you, we were not so very long before the 


THE COMING TERROR. 


113 

game began, since by the time we were 
abreast of Kilwa — which is the southern limit 
of the legal slave trade — we fell in with twelve 
dhows, one of which was our friend, from out 
of which I was rescued by your people. And 
you may depend we were after them like 
lightning, beginning to ply them with shell 
and shot from our little gun forward. They 
scattered, of course, though some got hit and 
lay disabled on the water, while I went off in 
the whaler with her crew to attack one that 
seemed badly knocked about — the one in 
which I was when found by you.” 

“ The horror! ” exclaimed Bella, with a 
pretty shudder. 

“No, no! don’t call her that, because, 
after all, I owe my life to her.” 

“ The angel! ” exclaimed Bella now, with 
sudden change. 

“ Though I don’t altogether know that 
the captain meant to save me ” 

“The wretch! I’m glad he’s dead.” 

Gilbert laughed at these variations in 
Bella’s mental temperature. Then he con- 
tinued: “ They are artful — incredibly artful — 
these dhows. They will let our pinnaces or 


THE SEAFARERS. 


114 

whalers, or any other of the ship’s boats, come 
alongside; then all of a sudden they cut their 
lee-halyards, and down comes their great sail 
over us, enveloping the boat and all in it just 
as if it were in a nest or bag.” 

“Ah!” gasped Bella. 

“ And that’s not all. When you are 
caught like that they have another pleasing 
little way of firing at you from above and 
through the canvas, so that you are being 
shot down while all the time you have no 
chance of escape.” 

“Oh!” exclaimed Bella. “There! Oh, 
the wretches! ” 

“ They do, Bella. Fortunately, however, 
this one couldn’t do it, being disabled, and 
had therefore come up to the wind with 
hardly any way on her. This was all right 
for us, as I meant to board; so, as we came 
alongside each other, we hooked on to her 
anchor cable which was hanging pretty low 
down, and we should have got on board, too, 
only at that moment the dhow gave a lurch 
which sent the whaler half seas under, and I 
got a blow on the head that knocked me in- 
sensible ” 


THE COMING TERROR. 


”5 

“ Oh, Gilbert! That wound on your 
head! ” 

“ I suppose so. At any rate, I knew no 
more about it. And I don’t know anything 
further, either, since till I woke up here this 
morning and found you bending over me I 
had no recollection of anything. It’s a won- 
der the negoda (or captain) didn’t kill me. 
Perhaps, however, he was already ill or 
wounded. He seemed a little jumpy when 
we got alongside.” 

“ But how did you come into the dhow 
you were found in? ” Bella asked now, and 
pouring out directly afterward one question 
after another. “ And when did it happen — 
yesterday, or a week ago? And where was 
the whaler — and the sailors, and the Bri- 
seus? And why did they all desert you? 
What a nice kind of a captain yours must be, 
to be sure! ” 

“ My opinion is now,” said Gilbert, “ that 
the dhow you found me in rescued me, picked 
me up. Also, I expect our captain — he is a 
rattling good skipper, Bella, all the same — 
heard I was drowned and thinks I’ve missed 
my muster. My cousin Jack will imagine for 


n6 THE SEAFARERS. 

a day or so — till we get into Bombay — that he 
is the future Lord D’Abernon,” and he 
laughed as he thought of how soon Cousin 
Jack would be undeceived. 

“ But the dhow we found you in — how 
did she escape? And why didn’t the Bri- 
seus capture her? ” 

“ Some must have got off in the confusion, 
and it was only an hour from sunset. I’m cer- 
tain to be reported lost when the ship goes 

into either Zanzibar or Aden, and 

What’s that?” he exclaimed, breaking off 
suddenly. “Surely that’s your uncle’s voice?” 

He recognised it, because Captain Pooley 
had been in to see him after he recovered his 
consciousness, and had congratulated him on 
doing so and being practically restored, as 
well as saying that he was delighted at being 
the means of rescuing him out of the sinking 
slaver. 

“ Yes,” Bella replied, “ that’s uncle’s 
voice. And the other is that of Mr. Charke, 
the first mate.” 

“ Listen! What is it he is saying? ” 

It was perfectly easy to hear what he was 
saying, since both master and mate were con- 


THE COMING TERROR. 


II 7 


versing in the saloon, to which Charke had 
descended. And the words which reached 
their ears as they fell from the latter’s lips 
were: “ Oh! no doubt about it whatever, 
sir. Not the least. The negress is now as 
blind as the negroes themselves. She can- 
not see her way along the deck, or any of the 
signs we have made before her eyes.” 


CHAPTER XI. 


THE TERROR INCREASES. 

The southerly wind did not hold as it 
should have done considering the time of 
year, and the consequence was that the Em- 
peror of the Moon was by no means making 
the passage that was to be expected of her. 
Indeed, by the time that the second day had 
passed since the rescue of Gilbert from the 
slaver, and when the evening was at hand, she 
was almost motionless on the water, and with 
such sails as were still left standing hanging 
as listlessly as though they were suspended in 
a back room. Now this was disheartening to 
all on board — that is to say, to all except one 
person — as is generally the case when such 
things happen. The master was grieved, be- 
cause he looked upon the delay as an abso- 
lute waste of valuable time; while as for Bella 
and Gilbert — well, it is scarcely necessary to 
write down here what they were looking for- 


THE TERROR INCREASES. 


II 9 

ward to at the end of their journey, nor what 
visions haunted the mind of the latter of the 
cathedral in Bombay and a ceremony of mar- 
riage being performed at the altar rails by the 
Bishop. Yet, all — passengers, master, and 
men — had to swallow their disappointment as 
best they might, and to recognise the fact that 
Bombay was still three thousand miles away, 
and not likely to be reached for very many 
days. 

The one person who, however, was re- 
signed to the affliction of delay was Stephen 
Charke, in whose brain there still lingered a 
wild and chimerical idea that there might yet 
be sent by Fate some extraordinary piece of 
good fortune which would, even at the last 
moment, sever Gilbert and Bella, with the 
subsequent result of bringing him, Stephen, 
and Bella, together. It has been said that he 
was a dreamer, and never had he been so more 
than now, since, sleeping and waking, he still 
mused on the possibility of some extraordi- 
nary set of circumstances arising which should 
force the girl into his arms. Yet he had to 
own to himself that nothing was more un- 
likely than that any such circumstances could 


120 


THE SEAFARERS. 


by any possibility arise. If anything visited 
these seas, this stupendous ocean, at this 
period of the year, it was more likely to be a 
flat calm such as that which they were now 
experiencing, instead of storms, and even if 
storms should come, of what avail would they 
be to separate Gilbert Bampfyld and Bella 
Waldron? 

“ I am a fool! ” he would mutter to him- 
self, as he smoked his pipe either in the soli- 
tude of his own cabin or on the deck at night, 
“ a fool! A madman! One has only to ob- 
serve how they love each other, how they 
never leave each other’s side, to see that noth- 
ing could ever bring her to me. Even 
though she and I were cast on some deserted 
shore, even though I saved her life from forty 
thousand threatened deaths, even though 
Bampfyld himself were dead and buried, she 
would never give herself to me. I am,” he 
would repeat again, “ a fool! ” And this ac- 
knowledgment would for a time operate 
wholesomely on him — a man whose mind was 
not altogether that of a visionary, and whose 
heart was not by nature a perverted or 
warped one — and he would resolve that 


THE TERROR INCREASES. 


21 


henceforth he would think no more of this 
girl for whom his love was so mad and, to 
him, so disturbing. He made resolutions, 
therefore, and kept them — until the next 
time that he saw the lovers together, smiling, 
talking, happy in each other — “ billing and 
cooing,” as he called it with a smothered 
curse. 

They were on deck now, together, on the 
evening of the second day when Stephen 
went up to take the first watch — for Gilbert 
had refused to remain shut up in the cabin 
allotted to him for more than twenty-four 
hours — and Pooley also was there; Fagg be- 
ing below, finishing his supper. Mrs. Pooley 
sat on the poop in a deck-chair, engaged in 
some needlework she had constantly on 
hand, and, forward, the men were occupied in 
smoking and telling yarns, while the general 
idleness which pervades the fo’castle when a 
ship is becalmed prevailed everywhere. One 
man was reading a short story to his mates 
out of a country paper six months old; 
another had a sewing machine between 
his legs with which he was mending his 
and his comrade’s clothes; a third was teas- 


122 


THE SEAFARERS. 


in g and playing with “ Bengalee,” the tiger- 
cub, which was growing — or seemed to be 
growing — fast. At present, however, it was 
safe to let it loose, since it had no more 
strength than a large-sized cat, and teeth 
not much bigger than those domestic 
animals possess. Generally, the creature fol- 
lowed Bella about wherever she went; rolling 
down the companion ladder after her like a 
striped ball when she went below, or lying on 
the edge of her dress when she sat on deck; 
but at night it was shut up in a locker for- 
ward and looked after by the sailors. The 
hour for its temporary retirement had not, 
however, yet arrived, wherefore it was gam- 
bolling about amongst the men. 

Altogether the vessel presented a peaceful 
scene as she lay “ idle as a painted ship upon 
a painted ocean,” while from forward there 
came the droning voice of the sailor who was 
reading the romance to his mates, inter- 
rupted only by the laughter of the others at 
the cub’s leaps and growls, and from the after 
part of the ship there arose the talk of the 
quarter-deck people. 

“ Come,” said Pooley now, addressing 


THE TERROR INCREASES. 


123 


Charke, “ come, let us go and look at those 
unfortunate niggers. The Lord knows what 
is to become of them. The woman, you say, 
never rises from the floor of the cabin, but 
only lies there and moans. It is the stran- 
gest thing I ever heard of in my life. I wish, 
Mr. Bampfyld,” turning to that gentleman as 
he passed with Bella, “ that you could give 
us some information about that dhow we 
found you in.” 

But, of course, Gilbert could tell them no 
more than he had already done a dozen times, 
repeating in substance all that he had said to 
his fiancee. 

“ I am sorry,” he had said on each occa- 
sion, and again said now, “ but I know abso- 
lutely nothing. I was insensible when I was 
taken into the dhow — and taken in I must 
have been, since I could never have got in by 
myself; and, as you are well aware, I was in- 
sensible when I was brought out. I positive- 
ly know nothing.” 

“ The helmsman’s death was as strange 
as anything,” Pooley observed. “ Fagg says 
there was no wound about him that he could 
see. What, therefore, could he have died of? ” 
9 


124 


THE SEAFARERS. 


“ Sunstroke, I imagine/’ the first mate 
said, in his usual emphatic, crisp manner. 
“ Sunstroke. It could not have been fever, 
otherwise these negroes would have it too. 
Yet,” he went on, in a manner more medita- 
tive than usual with him, “ those Arabs, if he 
was an Arab, rarely suffer from that. It gen- 
erally takes a white man to get sunstroke.” 

“ Well, come,” said the master again, 
“ let’s go and see to them. The sun is on the 
horizon; it will be dark in a quarter of an 
hour’s time.” Whereupon he strode forward, 
accompanied by Charke, while Mr. Fagg, who 
had come up from the saloon, began to keep 
such watch as was necessary. And Gilbert, 
bidding Bella go and sit with Mrs. Pooley, 
strode after them, anxious to have a look at 
the unhappy creatures who had been rescued 
at the same time as himself. 

The male blacks had been put into a deck 
cabin (in which usually was kept an assort- 
ment of things, such as spare lamps, a boat 
sail or two, and Mr. Fagg’s bicycle, on which 
he disported himself whenever he got ashore 
anywhere) on which some matting had been 
thrown down for their accommodation. 


THE TERROR INCREASES. 


125 


And, as now they neared this cabin, they 
heard sounds proceeding from within it which 
were really moans, but to their ears had more 
the resemblance of the bleating of sheep. Also, 
it seemed as if one of the men within was 
chanting some sort of song or incantation. 

“ We shall have to stop this noise in some 
way, sir,” Charke said to the captain; “ it has 
been going on more or less ever since they 
came on board, and the men complain that it 
disturbs them in the fo’castle. It’s a pity 
we can’t communicate with them somehow. 
Perhaps Lieutenant Bampfyld might try, as 
he says he knows some words of Swaheli;” 
and as he spoke he looked at the man who 
had once more, as he considered, or chose to 
consider, stepped in between him and the 
woman he loved. Yet, because he never for- 
got that he was a gentleman born, there was 
nothing in his manner which was otherwise 
than polite when he addressed Gilbert. 

“ I have tried,” said the latter, “ more 
than once to-day; and either my Swaheli is 
defective, or that is not their language. I 
expect it’s Galla myself, of which I do not 
know a word.” 


126 


THE SEAFARERS. 


Meanwhile the captain had drawn back 
the cocoa-nut matting which hung in front of 
the deck cabin door, though, after peering 
into the sombre dusk for a moment, he started 
back, exclaiming: “ Good heavens! what has 
happened now? Have they murdered one 
of their companions, or what? ” 

It was in truth a weird sort of scene on 
which he, as well as Gilbert and Charke, gazed 
as the swiftly failing tropic evening light illu- 
mined the interior of the cabin. Flat on the 
floor of it lay one of the negroes, undoubtedly 
dead, since on his face was now the gray, 
slate-coloured hue which the African assumes 
in death. Yet his eyes were open, only now, 
instead of that bright glassy look which all 
their eyes had had since they were brought 
on board, there was a dull filmy look, which 
told plainly enough that there was no life 
behind them. Still, dead as the man un- 
doubtedly was, he did not present the most 
uncanny spectacle of all within. That was 
furnished by those who of late had been his 
comrades, and by the weird grotesqueness — 
a grotesqueness that was horrible in itself — 
of their actions. All three of the still living 


THE TERROR INCREASES. 


127 


negroes were on their knees in the cabin, 
which was roomy enough to amply admit of 
their being so, while with their great black 
hands they were pawing the man all over, feel- 
ing his breast and body, and endeavouring to 
bend his fingers and toes, and also his legs and 
arms, and, even as they did so, from their 
great mouths came that moaning incantation 
which resembled so much the bleating of 
sheep. Doubtless they felt almost sure that 
their fellow slave was dead, and these actions 
were being performed as tests. Yet, also, 
there was a solemn, wild unearthliness at- 
tached to the whole thing by the manner in 
which, when one of the visitors who was 
standing at the door peering in, made a re- 
mark, all turned their sightless eyes toward 
that door, then held up each a hand and emit- 
ted a hissing noise through their great pen- 
dulous lips, as though enjoining silence and 
respect to the dead; held up those hands, 
the fingers stretched enormously apart, the 
palms towards the intruders. Their eyes 
were bright enough as they glared at the 
three white men outside whom they could 
not see, yet somehow the gleam in them, and 


128 


THE SEAFARERS. 


the knowledge that they were sightless, gave 
so creepy a feeling to those regarding them 
that they could not restrain a shudder. 

“What in God’s name is it?” exclaimed 
Pooley, he being the first to speak. “ What? 
What horrible disease, that blinds them to 
commence with and then kills. And kills not 
only negro, but Arab, captured and captor. 
Who, which, will be the next? ” 

As he spoke, a thought struck each of 
the three as they stood there gazing at one 
another in the swiftly arrived darkness of the 
tropic night- — a thought which, however, not 
one of them gave utterance to. Who would 
be the next? An Arab had died from some 
strange unknown disease in the ship wherein 
these men had been found, and now one of 
them, too— one of the negroes. Had, they 
reflected, this insidious horror been therefore 
brought into a ship full of white men, would 
they also fall victims to that which had. killed 
the others? That was the thought in their 
minds, in the minds of all of them, though 
not one gave voice to that thought. 

“ He must be got away from them, taken 
out of that cabin,” Pooley said, his speech a 


THE TERROR INCREASES. 


2 9 


little changed now, more husky and less clear 
than usual. “ Perhaps the woman, the ne- 
gress, may be of some avail. I doubt if they 
would let us remove him without difficulty — 
though, poor blinded things as they are, they 
could scarcely make any resistance. Go 
across to the other cabin, Mr. Charke, and 
fetch her over.” 

He had been anticipated in his order, how- 
ever, by the chief mate ere he spoke, Charke 
having, through some idea of his own, al- 
ready crossed the deck to the similar cabin in 
which the woman was placed. Therefore, as 
Pooley looked round to see why the mate did 
not answer him, he saw in the darkness that 
he was returning. Also he saw that, even in 
this darkness which was not quite all dark- 
ness yet, and also by the light of the foredeck 
lantern, that' he looked pale and agitated. 

“ The woman,” he said, “ is dead, too, I 
believe. She is lying on the cabin floor mo- 
tionless, and cold.” 


CHAPTER XII. 


stricken! 

It was from this time that there began to 
creep over the ship a feeling shared by all, 
both fore and aft, that the voyage would not 
end without something untoward happening. 
What form, however, any misfortune which 
might come to them would be likely to take, 
none were bold enough to attempt to proph- 
esy. Yet all the same the feeling was there, 
and since every man on board the ship was a 
sailor, while, as of the ladies, one was a sailor’s 
wife and the other a sailor’s future wife (each 
of whom was certain to be strongly receptive 
of the ideas and superstitions of her own par- 
ticular mate), it was not very strange that 
such should be the case. Also there was 
still in the thoughts of all that idea, to which 
none of the white men congregated outside 
the cabin when the negro had been found 

dead had ventured to give expression — the 
130 


STRICKEN ! 


131 

idea that the unknown, insidious disease 
which had struck him and the negress, and 
also, possibly, the Arab negoda down, might 
eventually seize on them. There was, how- 
ever, at present at least, no symptoms of 
anything of the kind happening. All on 
board continued well enough, and, up to the 
time that the man and woman had both been 
buried in the sea for more than twenty-four 
hours, no complaints were heard from any one 
of feeling at all unwell, while the three re- 
maining blacks seemed no worse than before. 

Yet it was a pity, perhaps, that at this 
time the ship should still have been forced to 
remain becalmed and almost motionless; 
that neither from south nor west any breeze 
blew — from the north and east there was 
scarcely a possibility of wind at this season 
— and that, except for the strong southern 
current which carried her along at a consid- 
erable though almost imperceptible rate, she 
hardly stirred at all. A pity, because it gave 
the sailors too many idle watches wherein to 
talk and chatter, to spin yarns of old-time 
horrors which had fallen upon vessels in dif- 
ferent parts of the world, of strange visita- 


132 


THE SEAFARERS. 


tions which they had either personally suf- 
fered under or had “ heer’d tell on,” and so 
forth. 

Nor aft, in the saloon, did those who used 
it fail to discuss the strange circumstance of 
not so much the death which had stricken 
the Africans, as the blindness that had fallen 
upon them. And here Stephen Charke, bet- 
ter read, perhaps, than any of the others 
owing to his studious nature, was able to dis- 
cuss the matter more freely than either the 
captain or those who sat at his table. 

“ I do distinctly recollect reading some- 
where,” the mate said one evening, as all sat 
under the great after-deck awning fanning 
themselves listlessly, while Fagg worked a 
kind of punkah which his ingenuity had de- 
vised, “ I distinctly recollect reading some- 
where of all those in a ship, on board of which 
was a large cargo of West African negroes 
bound for America, being stricken with blind- 
ness. I wish I could recall where I read it. 
In that way we might be able also to find out 
how to take some steps to avoid the same 
thing happening to us in the old Emperor.” 

“ A cheerful prospect, truly,” said the 


STRICKEN ! 


133 


captain, “ if that is to happen/’ and as he 
spoke he roamed his eye around the tranquil, 
glassy sea, on which there was not so much 
as a ripple. “ A pleasant thing, truly, if one 
half of us get blind and a rough time comes 
on. How, then, is the ship to be worked 
three thousand miles? How are the sails to 
be attended to? ” And now he directed his 
eyes aloft to where all the canvas was neatly 
furled, with the exception of the studding- 
sails. 

“ We’ll hope it won’t be as bad as that, 
sir,” said Fagg. “ Only the black people 
and those out of another ship than ours seem 
to suffer. Until one of us ” — by whom he 
meant the Europeans on board — “ gets af- 
fected, we haven’t much to fear, I take it. 
Also, you know, sir, we can find shelter be- 
fore we reach Bombay. There are the Sey- 
chelles, for instance, from which we are not 
so very far off.” 

“ Such delays as doing that would entail 
a serious loss for me,” Pooley replied. “ As 
it is, I expect, one way or another, I shall miss 
one voyage out of two years.” 

“ I hope not,” said Gilbert Bampfyld seri- 


134 


THE SEAFARERS. 


ously. “ Otherwise I shall begin to think it 
was a pity you ever came in contact with the 
dhow in which you found me.” 

Yet, as he spoke, he saw Bella’s beauti- 
ful eyes fixed on his face, and knew that no 
more crowning mercy had ever been vouch- 
safed to any two mortals than had been 
granted to his sweetheart and himself by his 
rescue. 

“ Well,” said Pooley, “ we won’t talk 
about that. I am devoutly thankful that we 
were enabled by God’s mercy, and also by the 
aid of something which is almost a miracle, 
to rescue you. For the rest, a sailor must 
take all that comes in his way and never re- 
pine. The Emperor has been a good old 
tank to me; pray Heaven she continues so 
to the end.” Then he suddenly stopped and 
peered forward under the awning toward the 
fo’castle, where beneath another awning the 
sailors had been lying about, some sleeping, 
some chatting idly, and most of them — even 
to those who had dropped off — with a pipe 
between their lips. 

“ What’s that commotion forward? ” he 
asked, addressing himself to Charke, who, 


STRICKEN ! 


135 


ever on the qui vive as becomes a chief of- 
ficer, had sprung to his feet and was gazing 
keenly toward the foredeck. “ What’s the 
matter with the men, and why are those three 
holding Wilks up like that? ” 

“ Forward there! ” sang out Charke in a 
voice like a trumpet, as he too saw that 
which the master had described, namely, three 
of the hands standing up round the man 
named Wilks and one grasping him on either 
side, while he himself pushed his arms out be- 
fore him in a manner that implied a sort of 
doubting helplessness on his part. “ For- 
ward there! What’s the matter with that 
man? ” 

“ He says he can’t see, sir,” roared back 
another man on the forecastle deck, pulling 
his hair to Charke as he spoke. “ He was 
asleep just now, and then, when he woke up, 
he asked what time o’ night it was, because it 
was so dark.” 

“ My God! ” exclaimed Pooley, while the 
faces of all around him took on a blanched, 
terrified look, and Bella, with the beautiful 
carnation of her lips almost white now, 
grasped her lover’s arm — “ My God! ” Then 


i3 6 


THE SEAFARERS. 


he turned to Fa gg and muttered, repeating 
the other’s words: “ ‘ Not much to fear until 
one of us gets affected.’ Heavens! we 
haven’t had long to wait.” 

Then following Charke, who had already 
gone forward followed by Fagg, he went to- 
ward the forecastle. 

His mates were bringing Wilks down the 
ladder now, since Charke had sung out that 
he should be taken into the comparative dark- 
ness of their quarters at once, thereby to es- 
cape the glare of the sun; and not one of 
those who were eagerly watching his descent 
but observed how like his actions were to the 
actions of the blinded negroes when they were 
brought off from the dhow — and those of the 
others, his mates, to the behaviour of the 
men who had assisted them to come on board. 
For his companions directed his hand to the 
ladder ropes even as the blacks’ hands had 
been directed; while in each of his actions was 
the same hesitation, followed by the same 
careful grasping of the rail, as there had been 
in the actions of the slaves. 

“ Oh, Gilbert,” Bella exclaimed piteous- 
ly as she clung to him, “ what is going to 


STRICKEN ! 


137 

happen? What is hanging over us? Sup- 
posing — supposing ” 

“ What, darling? ” 

“ That — oh, I don’t dare to say what I 
dread! But if this terrible thing should 
spread all through the ship — if uncle, if you, 
if all the sailors were attacked! And you — 
you, dearest — you, my darling! ” 

“ Let us hope it will not come to that. 
Besides, I, personally, matter the least of 


“ Bertie! ” she almost shrieked, alarmed; 
“ when you know that those others — some of 
them at least, those poor black creatures — 
have died after it. And you say that you 
matter the least of any — you, whom I 
love so! ” 

“ I meant as regards the ship. I am not 
one of her officers, nor concerned in the work- 
ing of her. And, Bella, dearest Bella, don’t 
get these dreadful ideas into your pretty 
head. Never give way to panic in an emer- 
gency. Doubtless some more will find 
their eyesight leave them temporarily, but 
it can scarcely be that all will be attacked. 
And as regards death following, why, those 


138 


THE SEAFARERS. 


other niggers are all right, and they are just 
as blind as those who have died.” 

It happened — as so often such things do 
happen in this world — that he spoke a little 
too soon. Hit upon the denial of the likeli- 
hood of a possibility occurring which, by a 
strange decree of fate or chance, was at the 
very moment of that denial to occur. For, 
just as the repudiation of such probability 
was uttered by him, and before the men help- 
ing Wilks had had time to get him comfort- 
ably into his berth in the forecastle, there 
arose once more that strange bleating, moan- 
ing kind of incantation from the deck cabin 
in which the remaining negroes were which 
had been heard before by all. And added to 
it was something more than any had hereto- 
fore heard, namely, a series of wild, turbulent 
shouts in the unknown barbaric tongue used 
by the Africans — shouts that seemed to issue 
alone from one of their throats. A noise, a 
bellowing, in which — though, on board the 
Emperor of the Moon there was not one per- 
son who could understand the words that 
voice uttered — all recognised the tones that 
denote fear, terror, misery extreme. 


STRICKEN ! 


139 


Instantly, so stridently horrible were 
those cries, every one of the Englishmen 
about the ship rushed toward the cabin, 
Pooley and Charke being the first there, while 
Gilbert, running forward from the after part 
and along the waist, was soon by their sides. 

And then, looking in, they saw that the 
poor blinded, excited savage who was emit- 
ting those shouts had in truth sufficient reason 
for his frenzy. 

He seemed — was, indeed — demented, as 
with both his great hands he felt all over the 
bodies of his comrades who were lying lifeless 
on the cabin deck — presented an awful ap- 
pearance to those who gazed on him, as his 
great features worked in excitement, his vast 
mouth, with its adornment of huge white 
teeth, opened and shut lie a wild beast’s at 
bay, and his blind but brilliant eyes glared 
hideously. That he was nearly mad with 
fright and terror was easily apparent, since, 
recognising without seeing that there were 
others near, he snarled and bit at the space in 
front of him and struck out with his fists, or 
clawed at the air with his enormous hands. 

“ He will spring out at us directly,” 
10 


140 


THE SEAFARERS. 


Charke said, drawing to one side of the cabin. 
“ The fellow is mad with fear or grief.” 
Then, ready in expedient as ever, he ran the 
cabin door out of its slide and shut in the 
negro with his dead companions. Nor did he 
do so too soon, since, a moment later, those 
without heard the huge form of the man leap- 
ing toward the door — once they heard him 
slip as though he had trodden on the body, or 
one of the limbs, of those lying dead on the 
floor — and then came a beating and hammer- 
ing on that door which seemed to promise 
that in a few seconds the panels would be 
dashed out and the frenzied black be amongst 
them. 

“This is too awful!” muttered Pooley. 
“ Is he really gone mad, do you think? ” he 
asked, appealing to Charke, Gilbert, and 
Fagg at one and the same time. 

“ No doubt about it,” they answered to- 
gether. “ No doubt. And if he once gets 
out on to the deck,” said Charke, “ a dozen of 
us will not be able to hold him.” 

“ We must capture him if he does. 
Throw a rope round him somehow. If he 
were not blind we should have to shoot him. 


STRICKEN ! 


141 

Ha, see! he has smashed open the panel. 
Stand by there, some of you men, to catch 
him as he leaps out ! ” 

And even as Pooley spoke the gigantic 
madman, with another howl, broke down the 
door and sprang amongst them. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


“spare her! spare her! 

Mrs. Pooley, Bella, and Gilbert sat 
alone in the saloon that night, the faces of the 
two women being careworn and depressed in 
appearance, while on that of the young naval 
officer was a look, if not of consternation, at 
least of doubt and anxiety. That all of them 
should present this appearance of perturba- 
tion was natural enough, because by this 
time it was impossible to suppose that any- 
thing less than a calamity was impending 
over the Emperor of the Moon and all in her. 
Two more men, named Burgess and Truby, 
had been attacked with blindness, while the 
negro, who had been the last survivor 
amongst the slaves, had himself now died. 

“ It was,” said Gilbert, who had come be- 
low to tell the ladies that which had happened 
above — since to keep silence on the subject 

was useless because of the turmoil in the ship 
142 


SPARE HER! SPARE HER !” 


M3 


which had attended the poor creature’s last 
moments — “ something awful. He died a 
raving maniac — nothing short of that. You 
heard his howls and yells after we had got 
him safely tied up; we saw a sight that I, at 
least — and, I should think, everybody else — 
hope never to see again. Even roped as he 
was, his leaps and convulsions were some- 
thing shocking — thank God! they soon came 
to an end. I believe he died of the exhaus- 
tion caused by his mania.” 

“ What is to become of us all?” asked 
Mrs. Pooley feebly. “What? The ship 
moves only by the current. My husband said 
just now that if things go on and get worse 
there will be none left to control her when the 
wind does come.” 

“ The trouble is,” said Gilbert, “that if 
they make sail when the wind springs up 
there may be none to take it in if it comes on 
too strong. And, at all events, it will be seri- 
ous if more men are attacked. I have of- 
fered my services in any capacity if wanted, 
and will serve either as officer or man if Cap- 
tain Pooley will let me.” 

Bella threw an admiring glance at her 


1 44 


THE SEAFARERS. 


lover in approval of what she, in her own 
mind, probably considered his noble disinter- 
estedness. Then she said: 

“ But surely all are not going to be at- 
tacked one after another in this way. And, 
if so, uncle can’t possibly think of trying to 
get to Bombay when the wind does come.” 

“ I have suggested the same thing to him 
that Fagg did this afternoon, namely, the Sey- 
chelles. They’re all right and the climate is 
first-rate for the tropics. He says, however, 
he will see what happens by the time we get a 
wind. He won’t go in if no more men are at- 
tacked.” 

Meanwhile, even as he spoke each of the 
trio was occupied with thoughts which they 
would not have cared to put into language. 
Mrs. Pooley’s were those good wifely reflec- 
tions which busied themselves only with her 
husband’s interests and were disturbed by 
considerations of what a loss to him the de- 
lay would produce should it be further pro- 
longed. Also, there was growing upon her, 
if it were not already full grown — as was now 
the case with all others in the ship — a creepy, 
indefinite horror of what might be the out- 


SPARE HER! SPARE HER! 


145 


come of this strange affliction that had fallen 
on the vessel. Suppose, she had asked her- 
self a hundred times in common with all the 
others on board — the sailors alone expressing 
this thought openly — suppose every one in 
the Emperor succumbed to the blindness! 
What, then, would happen, even if it were not 
followed by death? Would they drift about 
the ocean helplessly if the calm continued 
until they were seen and rescued by some oth- 
er vessel, or, if a strong gale came up, would 
they, with no one capable of so much as steer- 
ing the ship — let alone being able to handle a 
sail — be shipwrecked and sent to the bottom? 
While, as to the horrible idea of death follow- 
ing on blindness and the Emperor of the 
Moon drifting about a floating catacomb — 
that was not to be thought about! It was 
too fearful a thing to reflect upon and still 
preserve one’s sanity. Yet, all the same, not 
only was it thought about and talked about 
amongst the sailors, but many ideas were pro- 
pounded as to what was to be done ere the 
worst came to the worst. As for Bella, her 
reflections were all of one kind, and one only 
— would Gilbert be spared! For herself she 


THE SEAFARERS. 


146 

cared but little, though she would scarcely 
have been the brave womanly girl she was if 
she had not repined at the dark cloud which, 
had now settled down over the existence of 
her lover and herself, and which threatened, if 
it continued to hover over them and their 
fortunes, to darken that existence still more. 
Further than this she did not dare to look, 
and, consequently, could only pray fervently 
that the cloud might be lifted ere long, while 
she strove to force herself to believe that such 
would undoubtedly be the case. 

Yet Gilbert’s meditations were, perhaps, 
the most melancholy and bitter of any of the 
three persons now assembled in the saloon — 
brave, self-reliant young officer as he was, and 
full of hope and belief in many happy years 
still to come and to be passed by the side of a 
beautiful and devoted wife, as well as in the 
service of a glorious profession — for he 
could not disguise from, or put away from, 
his mind the recollection that with his coming 
into this ship — with his rescue — there had 
come also that intangible, mysterious disease 
which was striking down one by one those 
around him at extremely short intervals; 


SPARE HER! SPARE HER! 


147 


and, although he knew that he was no more 
responsible for its presence than had he never 
been found in that accursed dhow, he began 
to think that there were many in the Emperor 
of the Moon who would regard him as more 
or less responsible, which, in truth, was a 
weak supposition born in his usually strong, 
clear head by the calamities now happening 
with great frequency one after the other — a 
supposition shared by no one else in the ship. 
For — as he himself knew very well, yet took 
no comfort in knowing — had he not been in 
the dhow, all the same her other inhabitants 
would have been rescued and taken off by 
Pooley, and would have brought on board 
with them the infection which was now sup- 
posed to be at the bottom of the disasters 
that were happening. 

The meditations of all there were now, 
however, disturbed by the descent of Stephen 
Charke to the saloon, he being about to eat 
his evening meal before taking the first 
watch. As usual, and almost, it seemed, un- 
justly so — since never had he said any further 
words to Bella which she could construe into 
an approach to anything dealing with his re- 


148 


THE SEAFARERS. 


gard for her — his appearance was disagreeable 
to her. He seemed, however, to be entirely 
oblivious of what her sentiments toward him 
might be, and, after giving a slight greeting 
to both ladies, rang the bell for the steward 
to bring him his supper. 

Then, as he seated himself at the table, he 
said: 

“ I fancy we shall have to avail ourselves 
of your offer of service after all, Lieutenant 
Bampfyld, and in spite of our having refused 
it an hour ago. Fagg — ” he went on, as he 
cut himself a crust from the loaf — “ is at- 
tacked with blindness now.” 

“ Great heavens! ” exclaimed Gilbert, 
while Bella, scarcely knowing why, burst into 
tears and hid her head on Mrs. Pooley’s ample 
shoulder. 

“Yes, it is too awful. Also Payne, the 
bos’un.” 

“ My God! ” 

And now Mrs. Pooley’s fortitude gave 
way also, and she sobbed quietly to herself 
until, recognising that two tearful women 
were scarcely in their proper place in the sa- 
loon with these two young men, she rose, and, 


SPARE HER! SPARE HER! 


taking Bella with her, they went off to their 
cabins. 

“ The watch, of course,” went on Charke, 
“ is nothing now with the ship at a standstill. 
Yet one has to keep it more or less. Fagg’s 
turn would have been the middle one to- 
night, but if you like to fall in you can take 
the first, and Fll ” 

“ Thank you,” said Gilbert quietly. 
“ But I have done plenty of watch-keeping, 
both before and after I was a flag-lieutenant. 
The middle watch won’t hurt me. I will re- 
lieve you at midnight.” 

“ As you like. Of course, the skipper and 
I recognise that it is a great favour on your 


“ Oh, rubbish! We are absolutely and 
literally ‘ all in the same boat ’ now, and we’ve 
got to make the best of it.” Then Gilbert 
rose and said: “ By the way, I should like to 
go and see that poor chap Fagg if he is in 
his cabin. He’s a nice young fellow.” 

“ He is, and a good sailor, though he 
doesn’t make any fuss. Lord knows what’s 
going to be the end of it all. I hope to 
Heaven those who are struck won’t go the 


150 


THE SEAFARERS. 


way of those niggers. Also, that their sight 
will come back before long.” 

“ I should hope so too, or else this will 
be one of the most awful calamities that ever 
fell on any ship on a voyage. And the worst 
is, no one knows what the end is to be.” 
Then he turned on his heel and moved away 
with the intention of going to Fagg’s cabin, 
while Charke, who was now half way through 
his supper, went on steadily with it. Yet, as 
Gilbert reached the gangway outside, he 
made a further remark. 

“ By the bye,” he said, “ another strange 
thing has happened. That tiger cub of Miss 
Waldron’s — her pet — seems going the same 
way as the others. It is crawling about the 
foredeck in a half-blind fashion, and evidently 
can’t see signs made before its eyes. As far 
as the creature goes, I shouldn’t mind seeing 
it fall through one of the scuppers back into 
the sea it was dragged out of. It was rather 
rubbish to save it at all! ” 

The words “ that tiger cub of Miss Wal- 
dron’s ” grated somehow on Gilbert’s feel- 
ings, as did also the brutality of the remark 
about its falling into the sea. Why this was 


SPARE HER! SPARE HER! 


so he did not know, unless it was that he had 
seen the interest that Bella took in the little 
creature, and in feeding it and calling every 
one’s attention to the extraordinary manner 
in which it seemed to grow almost hourly. 
Nevertheless, the observation did grate on 
him, and he began to tell himself that he did 
not care much for Stephen Charke. How- 
ever, like a good many other young naval of- 
ficers, he had thoroughly learnt the excellent 
system of controlling his thoughts in silence, 
wherefore, without making any further re- 
mark than saying that he was sorry to hear 
about Bengalee, he went on his way to Mr. 
Fagg’s cabin, leaving the first mate to finish 
his supper by himself. 

He left him also to some strange medita- 
tions which, had they been uttered aloud in 
the presence of any listener, might have 
caused that person to imagine that he was the 
recipient of the babblings of a visionary. Put 
into words those musings would have taken 
some such form as this: 

“ Supposing this malady or pestilence, or 
whatever it is, should be followed by madness 
and death, as was the case with the negroes. 


152 


THE SEAFARERS. 


And supposing also that, among those who 
are struck, our friend Lieutenant Bampfyld — 
the future Lord D’Abernon — should be one. 
What happens? Bella — ” for so he dared to 
call her in his thoughts and to himself — 
“ Bella is deprived of him. Suppose, also, 
that the whole management of the ship falls 
into my hands — Pooley may be attacked, too 

— then — then — then ” But here his 

mental ramblings had to come to a conclu- 
sion because, wild as his riotous thoughts 
were, his mind was clear enough to perceive 
that he was just as likely to be attacked by 
the blindness as was either Pooley or Bamp- 
fyld. Likewise, he saw very plainly that so, 
too, was Bella. And this pulled his medita- 
tions up with a jerk, for he could imagine 
nothing more horrible that could occur now 
than that the majority of all the men on 
board should remain sound and unstricken 
and capable of working the Emperor of the 
Moon safely into some port or other, while 
the beautiful girl whom he worshipped and 
adored so much should succumb to the hate- 
ful affliction. 

“Oh, my God! ,, he almost moaned 


SPARE HER! SPARE HER! 


153 


aloud, “ if — if she should be the next. If she 
should be taken and we left. How — how 
could I endure that?” And then, because 
he was a man with many good impulses be- 
neath all the gall which had arisen in his 
heart at losing the girl he had once hoped so 
much to win, he moaned once more: “Not 
that — not that! Spare her, God, at least! 
Spare her, even though I have to stand by 
and see him win her after all! Spare her — 
spare her! ” 


CHAPTER XIV. 


MORE VICTIMS. 

But still the days went on and no wind 
came, the one thing which even now, after 
they had been becalmed for nearly a week, 
might have saved the ship from any fearful ca- 
lamity that was otherwise, almost without a 
doubt, in store for her; for according to their 
reckonings — taken regularly both by aid of 
the brilliant sun which still poured down its 
vertical rays upon them, and also by the use 
of a cherub log which they possessed as well 
as the ordinary ones — the current had drifted 
them some three hundred miles to the north, 
so that they had, consequently, the northern 
coast of Madagascar on their port bow as well 
as Tromelin Island, with Galega, Providence, 
and Farquhar Islands almost directly ahead 
of them. 

Only — the wind would not come, and the 

ship lay upon the water as motionless, ex- 
154 


MORE VICTIMS. 


155 


cept for the current, as though she had been 
fixed upon the solid and firm-set earth. And 
meanwhile the blindness which had seized 
upon one man after another was still continu- 
ing its progress, and more than half — indeed, 
three parts — of the complement of the Em- 
peror of the Moon were now sightless. Of 
seventeen sailors, eleven were down with this 
terrible, paralyzing affliction, as well as one 
officer, Mr. Fagg — down so that, if now the 
long-hoped-for breeze should spring up, there 
were scarcely enough men in the whole ves- 
sel to set the sails, even including Pooley — 
who certainly could not go aloft with safety! 
— and Charke and Gilbert; while, presuming 
all of them could do so and then the wind 
freshened, they would undoubtedly be far 
from able to take them in again. And then 
the result must be swift — undoubted — 
deadly. The ship would rush to her destruc- 
tion, be beyond all control; would either go 
over under the force of the elements or be 
dashed to pieces on some solitary coral island 
which she might encounter in her mad, un- 
governable flight. Consequently, there re- 
mained but one chance and one only for her, 
11 


IS6 


THE SEAFARERS. 


that chance being to forego the advantage of 
the wind when it came at last, and to let her 
drift under bare poles until they were seen 
and, perhaps, rescued by a passing vessel. 
Only, again arose the fear in all hearts, as al- 
ready it had done before — would any other 
ship which might encounter them be willing 
to take on board -men in such a plight as they 
were, and suffering from a disease which 
none could venture to doubt was, must be, 
contagious? 

Meantime, the life in the ship itself was, 
possibly, the strangest form of existence 
which has prevailed for many a long day in 
any stout well-found vessel making a long 
sea voyage; for she was subject to no stress 
whatever of weather, the elements were all in 
favour of her safety if not her progress, she 
was comfortable and easy, and well found 
with everything of the best, since in the 
Emperor of the Moon there was neither rot- 
ten pork nor weevily biscuits for old shell- 
backs to grumble and curse at and mutiny 
over, as those who wish to make the sailor 
dissatisfied with his lot are too often fond of 
representing to be the case. Every one was 


MORE VICTIMS. 


157 


well housed and well provided with good, 
wholesome food. Yet, all the same, she was 
a stricken ship! — stricken, in truth, by the 
visitation of God, smitten by the hand of God 
with a curse which none could understand nor 
explain. Fortunately, however — if the word 
“ fortune ” may be used in connection with 
those now in her — this curse seemed to have 
stopped at the blindness, though, God knows, 
that was bad enough. Death did not seem 
to be following after it, nor madness, nor de- 
lirium, as had been the case with the others — 
as certainly death had been. Those who were 
down lay in their berths blind, it is true, but 
otherwise there was naught else the matter 
with them, and, since they were ministered 
to by the others who up to now had them- 
selves escaped the visitation, they did not 
suffer in any other way. 

Bella and Mrs. Pooley were at this time 
more or less in charge of the provisions, the 
latter dealing out the men’s rations under 
the orders of her husband, while Bella, ar- 
rayed in a long, white apron which gave her 
a charmingly strange appearance in the eyes 
of all who beheld her, attended to the meals 


i 5 8 


THE SEAFARERS. 


of those who used the saloon, took her place 
in the cook’s galley — the unfortunate man be- 
ing one who was stricken with the scourge — 
and saw to all preparations necessary for their 
now hastily devised and uncomfortable meals. 

“ She’s a good ’un,” the six remaining 
healthy men muttered to themselves, as they 
saw her busying herself about the ship, 
making soup and broth for them as well as 
for the after-cabin, and working indefatigably 
from morning to night on behalf of all on 
board; “a real good ’un. And this here 
navy Lieutenant what’s to marry her is a 
lord, ain’t he, Bill? ” 

“He ain’t a lord yet, but he’s agoing to be. 
Ah, well! if we ever all gets safe to port, her 
ladyship will know summat about what her 
servants ought to be like. Her cooks won’t 
get to windward of her in a hurry, I’ll go 
bail.” 

“ If we ever get safely into port ! ” That 
was the sentiment which pervaded all minds 
on board the Emperor of the Moon at that 
time. “If we ever get safely into port!” 
For all on board now began to doubt whether 
they would do so. The eighth day of their 


MORE VICTIMS. 


159 


being becalmed had come even as these fore- 
castle hands discussed the girl’s goodness, 
with also, in whispers, many an admiring re- 
mark of her beauty and generally trim, brisk 
appearance; the eighth day had come, and 
suddenly, just as the forenoon watch was 
over, two more men suddenly called out to- 
gether that they were “ struck ” — were blind! 
Two more, leaving now only four sailors and 
three officers — counting Gilbert in place of 
Fagg — and two helpless women! 

“ Well,” said the chief mate, coming up 
to where Gilbert and Bella were discussing 
gravely this new affliction, while close by them 
was going on the usual business of getting the 
two fresh cases into their berths in the fore- 
castle — which was now a lazaretto — “ well 
this ends it! The wind may blow as much as 
it likes now; we shall never be able to make 
sail. We must drift about till we are picked 
up or — ” then, seeing the look of terror on 
Bella’s face, he refrained from finishing his 
sentence, saying instead: “ If we had as 
many hands to do one man’s work as you have 
in Her Majesty’s service, Lieutenant Bamp- 
fyld, we should still be all right.” 


i6o 


THE SEAFARERS. 


“ I don’t know,” Gilbert replied coldly, 
and in a manner which, quite unknown to 
himself, he had been gradually adopting of 
late towards his unsuspected would-be rival. 
“ I don’t know. We may have a dozen hands 
to do one man’s work in our service, as you 
seem to suggest, and as is often supposed, 
yet, all the same, I’d back four of our men 
and two young officers to get a lot of sail on 
a ship of this size somehow.” 

“They might. Yet, clever as they are, 
you wouldn’t like to back them for much to 
furl those sails again if the breeze? freshened 
into a strong wind, would you? ” 

“ I think so,” said Gilbert, still more cold- 
ly. “ At any rate, I’d back them to have a 
rare good try.” 

“Try!” exclaimed Charke. “Try! Oh, 
we can all try. As far as that goes, I’d have 
all the blind ones out to put their weight on 
the braces while the rest went aloft if the 
wind would only come; they could do that 
without seeing. Also, we would try getting 
the sails off again if it blew too hard, but I 
doubt our doing it. Any one can try! ” 
After which he walked forward to make 


MORE VICTIMS. x 6i 

inquiries about the two fresh cases of blind- 
ness. 

“ I don’t like that man, Bella,” Gilbert 
said, when he was out of hearing, “ al- 
though he is a smart officer and a gentleman. 
Also, I don’t think he likes me.” 

Fora moment she stood there saying 
nothing, her eyes cast down on the soft pitch 
of the seams, which was greasy and seething 
under the fierce sun. Then she looked up at 
her lover and said: “ No more do I, Bertie, 
now, though I did when I first knew him.” 

“ I wonder if he was ever in love with 
you? ” Bampfyld said, remembering as she 
spoke how once, in those delicious days when 
they had first acknowledged their own love 
for one another, she had jokingly told him 
that he was not the first sailor who had tried 
to woo her. Also, he recalled the fact that 
Charke had been taken to her mother’s house 
by her uncle, and had been more or less of a 
frequent visitor there. 

“ Was he, Bella? ” he continued. “ Was 
he the sailor you once told me of who wanted 
your love? ” 

“Yes,” she said, gazing up at him with 


1 62 


THE SEAFARERS. 


her clear, truthful eyes, “ he was. After 
we were engaged, when he returned to Eng- 
land, he told me so. And I believe now — I 
have thought so for some time — that he 
would never have applied for the position he 
holds in this ship if uncle hadn’t told him that 
I was coming in it. He was far too ambitious 
for such a post when I first knew him, and 
aspired to be first officer in one of the great 
lines and, eventually, to be an owner.” 

“ I’m glad you’ve told me, darling, es- 
pecially as it quite explains his not liking me 
overmuch. Poor chap! I can understand 
that he should not do so in the circum- 
stances,” he added, gazing down on his sweet- 
heart with such a glowing look of love as to 
cause her to forget all their unfortunate sur- 
roundings and revel only in her delight at be- 
ing so much beloved by him. 

“ Yet,” Gilbert continued, “ I can’t under- 
stand his wanting to come with this ship, 
even though it would give him three or four 
months more of your society. Such a thing 
as that would have been maddening to ordi- 
nary men — I know it would have been to me. 
If you had rejected me — I — I — well, there — 


MORE VICTIMS. 163 

I can’t say what I should have done, but at 
any rate I couldn’t have borne the torture of 
being in your presence, especially if you were 
on your way to marry another fellow.” 

“ He is a strange man,” Bella said. 
“ And although I never loved him — not the 
least little bit — I could not help admiring his 
force of character. His father, a selfish old 
man, treated him badly, balked him of going 
into your service, and yet he managed to be 
a sailor in another way, and to enforce re- 
spect from every one. Also, he is a cultivated 
man and wonderfully well read. Still I don’t 
altogether like his force of character, or rather 
the direction it takes. He told me once — 
when I first knew him — that he never faltered 
in his purpose, and that when he had made up 
his mind to do a thing, or get a thing, he did 
it, or got it somehow. I believe, too, that 
he meant it as a kind of suggestion.” 

“ Did he, though! ” exclaimed Gilbert, as 
now they sat beneath the awning, to which 
they had arrived while talking. “ Did he! 
Well, he won’t get you anyway, will he? 
Not while I am alive, anyhow. If, however, 
I were to die ” 


164 


THE SEAFARERS. 


But this remark was promptly hushed by 
Bella, who would not allow her lover to even 
finish it, and, as his watch commenced at six 
o’clock, he now went below to get an hour or 
so’s rest before that time arrived, while she 
still sat on beneath the awning thinking 
dreamily of him alone and of his future — if 
any lay before them! — which now seemed 
doubtful, or at least very uncertain. Then 
suddenly, as thus she mused, there happened 
a thing which startled her, amazed her so, 
that she sprang out of her Singapore chair and 
gazed aft, away down toward the south, a 
thing which even she, a landswoman, a girl 
originally unacquainted with all connected 
with seafaring matters, had by now come to 
recognise and understand as vital to all on 
board that ship. She had felt the back of 
the straw hat she wore lifted by a slight warm 
ripple of air; also some of the pages of a book 
she had left lying on the table were suddenly 
turned over swiftly and with a loud rustle. 

“ It is the breeze,” she muttered — “ the 
breeze! The wind at last! ” 

The others on deck had perceived it as 
quickly as she; at once those who were about 


MORE VICTIMS. 


165 

had sprung into action and thrown off the 
listlessness which had prevailed over every 
one in the ship since they had been becalmed 
— in an instant all was bustle and confusion, 
the few remaining men who could see mov- 
ing eagerly. Then the master came out from 
where he had been talking to some of the 
sufferers, while Charke, running along the 
waist, called out: “ Miss Waldron, Miss Wal- 
dron! Where is the Lieutenant? We want 
his services now at once. Perhaps we, too, 
can do as much as any of his own men if we 
look alive.” 

“ I will fetch him this minute! ” she cried, 
full of excitement, and she ran swiftly down 
the companion to the saloon on her way to 
hammer on Gilbert’s cabin door and awaken 
him. But as she reached the saloon she 
stopped, petrified almost and filled with a 
vague alarm at she scarcely knew what, while 
at the same time she smothered a shriek 
which rose to her lips, exclaiming in its place: 
“ Oh, Bertie, Bertie! What is the matter? ” 

For she saw him standing at the saloon 
table gazing at her — smiling even as he heard 
her loved voice, yet holding on to the table 


THE SEAFARERS. 


1 66 

with one hand, while with the other he felt — • 
as it seemed — cautiously before him. And 
again she cried: “ Bertie, what is it — what 
does it mean? ” 

Then she heard his voice saying, “ It 
means, darling, that I, too, am struck down 
— that I, too, am blind.” 


CHAPTER XV. 


“ A LIGHT FROM THE PAST.” 

Four men only left untouched by blind- 
ness now and two officers! To work a ship 
of six hundred tons! How was it to be — how 
could it ever be done? The task was hope- 
less, and so all recognised on board that un- 
happy, ill-omened ship even as now the wind 
freshened and the bosom of the ocean became 
flecked with little white spits of foam while 
the breeze, hot as the breath of a panting 
wolf, swept up from the south — a breeze 
hot now, though once it had been cool, gla- 
cial, as it left the icebergs of the Antarctic 
circle. 

What was to be done? they muttered now, 
as together the six unstricken men took 
counsel while they stood in the shade of the 
foredeck awning, and forgot, in their excite- 
ment, that one was the master and owner, the 

other the first officer, and the four remaining 

167 


THE SEAFARERS. 


1 68 

of the crew only poor ignorant sailors. 
What! What! What! 

“ I,” exclaimed Pooley at last, after much 
discussion, “ can at least steer her! Some 
one must do it if she is to move at all; other- 
wise, in spite of my seventeen stone, I would 
be up those ratlins like a boy. But, even 
then, of what use are five to fist all the canvas 
she can carry? ” 

“ We can fist some of it, at any rate,” said 
Charke, strong, determined as ever. “ By 
God! ” he cried, “ Lieutenant Bampfyld shall 
never go back to any of Her Majesty’s ships 
and say that half a dozen men under the red 
ensign couldn’t do something, couldn’t make 
one stroke for themselves.” Then, in an in- 
stant, he asked the captain to go to the wheel 
while he sent the man whose trick it was for- 
ward, and a second later he was issuing orders 
to his subordinates. 

Somehow those orders were obeyed, and 
in about an hour, during which time all 
worked with a will, and as if their lives de- 
pended on it, the Emperor of the Moon was 
under close-reefed top-sails, fore-sail, and fore- 
top-mast stay-sail, when, if she had only had 


A LIGHT FROM THE PAST.’ 


169 


her full complement of able-bodied men to do 
the necessary work, she might well have been 
under full sail before the still-increasing wind 
and* making a good nine or ten knots an hour. 
But now that was impossible; even if those 
five could have got all her canvas on her the 
thing would have been madness. A little fur- 
ther increase of force in the wind and they 
would at once have had to shorten sail again 
— which in the circumstances it must have 
been impossible for them to do — or to stand 
by and see the masts jumped out or blown 
overboard. As it was, the Emperor, under 
the combined powers of the current and what 
wind they could avail themselves of, was 
making something like five knots an hour. 

During all this time Bella had been below 
with Gilbert, a prey to terrible anguish, yet 
endeavouring in every way to cheer and so- 
lace him and to thrust her own fears and fore- 
bodings into the background — fears and 
forebodings of she scarcely knew what, yet all 
the same assuming by degrees a more or less 
tangible shape. For now — indeed, long since 
— there had been intensifying more and more 
in her mind that feeling of mistrust of 


170 


THE SEAFARERS. 


Stephen Gharke which she had experienced 
from the first moment that she had discovered 
him to be the second in command of the ves- 
sel in which she was to make so long a voy- 
age. Over and over again she had recalled 
how he had said that he was never balked, in 
the end, of what he desired to obtain; also 
that, if he wanted a thing, he generally man- 
aged to get it. And she knew that he had 
meant it as a warning if not a threat; though 
certainly since that miracle had happened 
which had brought her lover into the very 
ship which was taking her to India and to 
him she had laughed at — had inwardly de- 
spised — the threat, if it was one. 

But now! Now! With Gilbert stricken 
down by her side, helpless, crippled by blind- 
ness, unable to do aught for himself or her, 
and with her uncle broken down, worn al- 
most to equal helplessness with his enforced 
labour and his despair at the ruin which 
threatened him through the probable de- 
struction of his ship, what — what might not 
Charke do? He was not blind yet — nor 

Then, as her meditations reached this 
point, and while Gilbert sat by her side on the 


A LIGHT FROM THE PAST.’ 


pretty plush-covered locker, his head on her 
shoulder, he broke in on those meditations, 
and what he said could not by any possibility 
be construed by her as helping to dispel them; 
nay, rather, indeed, to aggravate them. 

“ At the rate we have been going on,” he 
said, “ since I came on board there will not 
be a living soul left with their eyesight by the 
end of the next two or three days. Oh, my 
God, Bella! what will it be like when this ship 
is at the mercy of the ocean with nine per- 
sons on board, all blind? ” 

“ Don’t let us think about it, darling! 
Don’t! Don’t! And even now some may 
retain their sight. Uncle, I — Mr. Charke — 
the men ” 

“ Ah,” he said, “Charke! Yes, Charke! 
Excepting you, dearest, I would sooner 
Charke kept his sight than almost any one 
else.” 

“ Why? ” she asked, thinking that of all 
who were in the ship she perhaps cared less 
whether Charke preserved his sight or not. 

“ Think what a strong, self-confident man 
he is. Even if all the others were blinded 

and he was not, he would devise something 
12 


IJ2 


THE SEAFARERS. 


for keeping the vessel afloat, though of 
course he could not work her. He would 
manage to get us all taken off somehow.” 

This, the girl acknowledged, not only to 
him but herself, was true enough. As re- 
garded his sailor-like self-confidence, courage, 
and determination, as well as how to do every- 
thing for the best that might be necessary in 
the most sudden emergency, there was no- 
body on board the ship, nor ever had been, 
who was superior, or even equal, to Charke. 
Only — in sole command, possession, of that 
ship, supposing the few remaining inhabitants 
of her should also be attacked with blindness 
and helplessness — what might he not do if his 
dogged resolution never to be balked of 
anything he had set his mind upon was al- 
lowed full sway? Her mind was not a tragic 
one nor more romantic than that of most 
young women who had been brought up as 
she had been; yet — yet — she shuddered at 
fears which were almost without actual shape 
in that mind. With all the others blind, 
herself included! — with none to check what 
he did — with the opportunity of removing 
forever from his path any who had crossed 


A LIGHT FROM THE PAST.' 


173 


it, of removing the one whom she felt sure, 
divined, he was anxious to remove — with an 

open sea around him “ Oh, God!” she 

broke off, exclaiming to herself, even as her 
thoughts shaped themselves thus, “ never, 
never will I believe it! Never will I think so 
basely of any man, especially since he has 
given me no cause to do so. And as yet there 
are plenty left with their eyesight — plenty 
left to see what is going on.” 

Her uncle and aunt came into the saloon 
now, filled with a distress that was visibly 
marked upon both their faces as well as in 
their demeanour, yet both as kindly as ever 
in their manner and full of expressions of 
sympathy with Gilbert in his affliction. But, 
all the same, Bella could not but observe the 
look of absolute illness and care on Captain 
Pooley’s countenance, nor help trembling in- 
wardly at the fear that he might be the next 
one attacked. 

Nevertheless, he said cheerfully enough, 
after he had exhausted his condolences with 
the young man: 

“ We are doing some good now, at any 
rate. The ‘ cherub ’ is marking about six 


174 


THE SEAFARERS. 


knots. If the wind keeps where and as it is, 
we may yet fetch Mahe, or one of the other 
Seychelles. In fact, we must reach them, or 
some other place, or ” 

“ Or what?” asked Bella, looking up at 
him with grief-laden eyes. 

“ Or,” her uncle said — not, however, con- 
cluding his speech as he had originally meant 
to do — “ or drift about until we fall in with 
another vessel. We ought to do that, too,” 
he continued, “ for we are almost in the direct 
track from the Red Sea to Australia — in the 
track of the big liners.” 

“ How,” asked Gilbert now, forcing a 
smile to his face as he spoke, although it was 
but a poor wan substitute for the bright joy- 
ous one that generally lit up his countenance 
— and, indeed, it was only assumed with the 
hope of cheering his sweetheart by his side, 
wherefore, like all other substitutes for a real 
thing, it was but a poor copy — “ how are my 
brother sufferers? It would be cheering 
news to hear that some of them were regain- 
ing their sight.” 

“ At present,” Pooley replied, “ only one 
of your fellow-sufferers seems to be doing so; 


A LIGHT FROM THE PAST.’ 


175 


and that's not a human being, but no other 
than Bella’s protege, the tiger cub. That 
creature is, we do all believe, coming round. 
It is rambling about the deck by itself, but it 
undoubtedly can see now to avoid hitting its 
head against the raffle lying round. How- 
ever,” he went on, “ here’s a little informa- 
tion which you may both be glad of; ” upon 
which he dropped his hand into his nankeen 
jacket and produced from it an old, dirty, and 
much-thumbed book, on which, in addition 
to many other unclean marks and stains, 
were droppings from candles. It was evi- 
dently, as Bella at once divined, one which 
had been pored over at night, while, had she 
been well acquainted with the habits of those 
who dwelt in the forecastle, she would have 
also understood that mercantile Jack is often 
enough in the habit of sticking lighted bits of 
candle about whenever he wants to read, and 
even to the sides of the bunk in which he lies, 
when he sleeps in one instead of in a ham- 
mock. 

“ Millett,” her uncle went on, naming one 
of the men who still retained his eyesight, 
“ showed me this an hour ago. It belongs to 


THE SEAFARERS. 


176 

poor Wilks, and is a book entitled, ‘ Calami- 
ties of Sailors,’ it being a collection of odds 
and ends accumulated from various writers 
by an unknown hand. Now here,” he went 
on, “ is a strange account of blindness attack- 
ing a vessel in much the same way as those 
in my poor old Emperor have been attacked 
and ” 

“ Did they regain their sight? ” ex- 
claimed his listeners together, all three, viz., 
Mrs. Pooley, Gilbert, and Bella, asking the 
same question in almost the same words. 

“ They did,” the master went on, “ in this 
case. It happened on board the James 
Simpson in 1803. But in another, I am 
sorry to say they did not. And also, I am 
sorry to say, this is a very circumstantial ac- 
count given by Monsieur Benjamin Constant 
to the French Chamber of Deputies in 1820, 
where he was speaking on the horrors of the 
West African slave trade. He tells how a 
French ship, Le Rodeur, having a crew of 
twenty-two men and a hundred and sixty 
slaves, left Bonny in 1819, and were at- 
tacked with almost precisely the same blind- 
ness which has now fallen on most of us. 


A LIGHT FROM THE PAST.’ 


177 


Things were worse with them than in this 
ship, however. They had scarcely any water, 
the air below was horribly impure, and when 
the poor wretched slaves were allowed on 
deck they locked themselves in each other’s 
arms and leapt overboard in their agony, so 
that the French captain ordered some of them 
to be shot as a warning.” 

“ Yet,” exclaimed Gilbert, “ Le Ro- 
deur must have got safely into harbour at last 
or Monsieur Constant could not have given 
his information.” 

“ Yes,” said Pooley, “ that, of course, is 
so. Pray God we do, too;” whereon he 
closed the book and dropped it into his 
pocket. 

It was well he should do so; well, too, 
that Bella did not ask to be allowed to read 
it for herself, for it contained a good deal 
more than her uncle had thought fit to read 
out; described further horrors which it was 
not advisable that any in that saloon should 
be made acquainted with.* It described how 


* This is not fictitious. M. Constant made his speech 
to the Chamber of Deputies on June 17th, 1820, and it 
contained all attributed to it above. 


J^8 THE seafarers. 

the crew were themselves struck down one 
by one soon after the outbreak amongst the 
slaves; how many of these slaves were flung 
overboard to save the cost of supporting 
them, and also how, while Le Rodeur was 
subject to this terrible calamity, a Spanish 
slaver named the Leon spoke her, asking for 
assistance, as almost every one on board the 
latter was stricken with sudden blindness. 
Le Rodeur, the account went on to say, event- 
ually reached Guadaloupe with only one man 
left who was not smitten, and he became 
blind directly after he had brought the vessel 
into harbour. The Spaniard was never heard 
of again. 


CHAPTER XVI. 

MAN OVERBOARD! 

Another day had passed and the south 
wind still blew gently, neither increasing nor 
decreasing in force, so that the logs showed 
that the Emperor of the Moon had pro- 
gressed between a hundred and fifty and two 
hundred miles further north. Further north, 
as all said now — not to Bombay, for they had 
abandoned all hope of reaching that port in 
their present short-handed condition and 
without obtaining fresh assistance, but to- 
ward the Seychelles. That was the harbour 
of refuge to which their thoughts and aspira- 
tions pointed at this time; the spot where, 
even though they should obtain nothing else, 
they would at least be in safety, and from 
which they could be taken off by some other 
ship if they were not able to find the means of 
working their own. 

But, even as this day was drawing to- 

179 


x8o THE seafarers. 

ward its conclusion — a day hotter, it seemed 
to all on board, than any they had previously 
experienced, and when neither the awnings 
nor the breeze that came aft protected them 
sufficiently to allow of their being on deck un- 
less duty demanded that they should be there 
— a change was perceived to have taken place 
in the condition of one or two who had been 
attacked by blindness. Mr. Fagg had de- 
clared that he was regaining his sight, and 
that although he could not distinguish small 
objects with any amount of clearness, he 
was nevertheless able to see large things, 
such as the form of a man or woman, in a 
blurred, indistinct manner, if he or she hap- 
pened to enter his cabin; while Wilks 
averred that his sight was returning rapidly 
to him. 

“ For see here, sir,” he said to Charke, 
who, learning what was happening, or said to 
be happening, had gone forward to question 
him on the subject, “ I can walk aft to the 
break of the poop without stumbling against 
anything or over anything either. May I 
show you, sir? ” 

“ Ay,” replied Charke, “ show me. Let’s 


MAN OVERBOARD! x 8l 

see what you can really do;” while at the same 
time he motioned to a sailor who happened to 
be by the mizzen-mast to throw down gently 
a coil of rope he held in his hand, so that when 
Wilks neared the spot where it was they 
would be able to observe whether he could 
see clearly enough to avoid it or not. 

Meanwhile Wilks, having received the 
necessary permission, had started from by the 
fife rails where this conversation had been go- 
ing on, and was making it perfectly clear that 
what he had stated was undoubtedly the 
truth; for, independently of the coil which 
the sailor had deposited abreast of the miz- 
zen-mast, there was at this moment a good 
deal of raffle lying about the deck, as well as 
a bucket or so, and a squeegee alongside the 
saloon skylight. But Wilks saw them all and 
steered himself along, avoiding each and every 
object both great and small, while when he 
approached the coil of cable he passed round 
it in almost precisely the same manner that a 
man in possession of his ordinary eyesight 
would have done. Then he looked back — at 
least he turned his face back — toward where 
he had started from, and with a gratified grin 


THE SEAFARERS. 


182 

on his countenance asked Charke if he was not 
all right. 

“ Yes,” replied Charke, “ or getting so. 
If one or two more of your mates would only 
recover in the same way we might bend an- 
other sail and so make a few more knots. 
Yet, curse it!” he muttered to himself, “ as 
one gets well another gets ill.” 

This was, unhappily, only too true, for 
not an hour before he had been called to ob- 
serve that Wilks seemed to be on a fair way 
toward recovery he had learnt that Pooley 
was, although not stricken with the blindness, 
yet rapidly becoming blind. The captain 
had himself discovered such to be the case 
when, after lying down for an hour, he had 
been unable to perceive anything clearly on 
awakening; and in another hour after this 
had been found by him to be the case he 
was obliged to acknowledge his darkness of 
vision was become more intense, and that he 
feared his sight would be actually gone by 
nightfall. 

This was perhaps the greatest blow of all 
to several on board the unfortunate ship. 
On Bella it fell with overwhelming force, 


MAN OVERBOARD! 


183 


for now she recognised that, of all others, the 
very man she most mistrusted and dreaded — 
though she could not have explained why 
that dread should have taken possession of 
her — was in absolute control over the ship, 
and could indeed do what he liked with it. 
Her uncle, she understood, could of course 
still issue orders, but how was it to be known 
that those orders were being obeyed? 

Then, strong-minded as she was, and feel- 
ing even more so, and also more self-possessed 
because of the presence of her lover in the 
ship, she again forced herself to discard such 
miserable and — as she termed them in her 
own mind — ridiculous fears, and set herself 
about the task which had now for some time 
devolved on her, of attending to the catering 
of the ship and looking after the sufferers 
generally; for from Mrs. Pooley she had 
scarcely at any time received much assistance, 
owing to how terribly unnerved the poor lady 
had been since the calamities on board began 
to follow each other in such frequent succes- 
sion, while now that her husband was struck 
down she appeared to have collapsed alto- 
gether. Indeed, at this present time she was 


THE SEAFARERS. 


184 

doing nothing but lying on the plush-covered 
sofa of the saloon, while moaning feebly that 
they were all doomed, and that even if the 
ship was not utterly cast away and lost, there 
would soon not be a living soul on board who 
would be able to see. 

“ And then,” she sobbed, “ what can hap- 
pen to a vessel — in the night especially — full 
of men and women who are all blind and can- 
not find their way from one end of the deck to 
another? ” 

“Nonsense, aunty dear, nonsense!” 
Bella replied, endeavouring bravely to com- 
bat her relative’s forebodings, which in sol- 
emn truth she shared to the full with her, 
though not for worlds would she have ac- 
knowledged that she did so. “ Are not some 
already getting well — Mr. Fagg and the 
sailor Wilks — and Bengalee ” 

“ While at the same time others succumb 
to the blindness,” Mrs. Pooley interjected, 
still with a moan. “ And now your poor 
uncle, of all others.” 

“ Well,” said Bella, still stout of heart, 
“ we have this comfort — it soon passes away. 
Let me see: Bengalee has been blind about a 


MAN OVERBOARD! 


I8 5 


fortnight, Wilks and Mr. Fagg about twelve 
days Whatever is that noise! ” she ex- 

claimed, breaking off suddenly. 

As she uttered that exclamation there had 
come a sudden racket up above their heads, 
the sound descending through the wide-open 
skylight — a noise which seemed first like 
the yelp of a dog in pain, then another which 
resembled somewhat the spitting of a cat, fol- 
lowed by a shrieking kind of growl, and then 
the voice of Charke exclaiming angrily: “ I’ll 
have the d — d thing thrown overboard! 
Here, you, catch hold of it — make a loop 
and fling it over his neck. Catch it, one of 
you! ” 

“ Oh ! ” cried Bella, forgetting every- 
thing else for the moment and rushing to- 
ward the companion, “it’s Bengalee!” 
Then she swiftly ran up to the deck and saw 
the tiger cub standing close up by the frame 
of the skylight growling at Charke, who it 
regarded with terribly vicious eyes; also, 
she noticed that it held up one of its hind legs 
as though it were injured. 

“ What are you doing to the creature? ” 
she cried. “ You have been kicking it again, 


THE SEAFARERS. 


1 86 

you — ” she was going to say “ brute,” but 
restrained herself. “ And you shall not have 
it thrown overboard, as I heard you order the 
men to do,” she continued. Then she went 
toward the creature perfectly fearlessly and 
spoke to it, and eventually stroked its back, 
so that at last its growls subsided altogether. 

The chief mate’s face had presented an ap- 
pearance of scowling rage as she reached the 
deck, while it had on it an ominous look that 
boded ill for any extended existence being 
accorded to Bengalee had she not appeared 
at the moment she did. Yet by the time she 
had ceased petting the animal he had man- 
aged to control himself considerably and to 
smooth out the look of temper from his 
countenance, while now he said: 

“ Oh! of course I did not really mean to 
do that, Miss Waldron, though it will have 
to be got rid of eventually. It is impossible 
that it can be kept much longer. And you 
know we have enough work to do without 
attending to such an animal as this. Just 
think! I am the only officer fit for duty, and 
I have only four able men to work with, 
since Wilks cannot be called well yet.” 


MAN OVERBOARD! 


18; 


Honestly, Bella felt sorry that she had 
spoken as hotly as she had done, since she did 
indeed recognise the almost superhuman 
amount of work that had fallen on Charke’s 
shoulders just now. He seemed never to 
sleep, but was on deck night and day, some- 
times steering, sometimes even going aloft 
alone, and hardly ever snatching a quarter of 
an hour for his hasty meals. She murmured, 
therefore, some words of regret, and was go- 
ing on to say how sorry she was for having 
been excited, when he stopped her. 

“ No, no, Miss Waldron! It was nothing 
— nothing. The thing did spring at me 
angrily as I passed where it was sleeping 
and I kicked it. I am sorry, too. And you 
know I would not injure anything you liked; ” 
while, as he spoke, he bent his dark, hand- 
some eyes on her. 

Perhaps it was a pity he uttered those last 
words, since in her own heart she did not be- 
lieve that they were true. She had seen his 
glances more than once directed at Gilbert 
when he had not known that she was observ- 
ing him, and she honestly believed that in 

them there was a malignant look — a look of 
13 


THE SEAFARERS. 


1 88 

dislike which very much belied his words; 
and she had seen — she thought she had seen — 
something else in those glances when Gilbert 
was first attacked with blindness which, if not 
gloating, was something very like it. She 
said, therefore, now, as she turned once more 
toward the companion: “Then you won’t 
punish it, Mr. Charke, will you? You won’t 
let it be thrown overboard in any circum- 
stances, will you? ” 

“ It shall be as sacred to me as you are,” 
he replied. “ Its life as sacred as yours.” 

But all the same she told herself, as she 
went back to the saloon, that if there was any- 
thing Charke hated in that ship — or rather 
any two things he hated more than all else — 
those things were her lover and Bengalee. 

Presently, not ten minutes later, she again 
heard his voice calling out loudly, this time to 
one of the men: “ If we could only get an- 
other sail on her we could make two more 
knots, I believe. If only some of those who 
are blind but not otherwise incapacitated 
would help on the braces and get the yards 
round we could do it.” 

She was not the only person who had 


MAN OVERBOARD! 


189 


heard those words. Not a moment had they 
left his lips before the curtains in front of Gil- 
bert’s and Mr. Fagg’s cabins were pushed 
swiftly back — with a metallic jangle as the 
rings ran along the rod — and each of the 
young men appeared in the saloon and began 
making his way, guided by his hands, toward 
the stairs leading up to the deck. 

“Oh!” cried Bella, not quite under- 
standing what it was that Charke wanted 
done, or what assistance could be rendered 
by persons who were blind, “ what are you 
both going to do? Gilbert, don’t do any- 
thing rash! Nor you, Mr. Fagg! ” though 
she saw by their faces and the smile that came 
to each that she had overrated any harm that 
was possible. 

“ We’ll get that sail on! ” exclaimed Gil- 
bert, as he felt his way up the stairs, and 
Fagg said, “ We will so,” as he followed him, 
after they had each jostled the other at the 
foot in a slight collision which their sightless- 
ness had caused; and a moment afterward 
Bella and Mrs. Pooley were left alone in the 
cabin. Yet they could hear plainly enough 
the words of approval bestowed on Gilbert 


THE SEAFARERS. 


I90 

and Fa gg as their presence and the meaning 
of it was recognised by those on deck as well 
as the orders bawled with great rapidity by 
Charke the instant he had received this extra 
assistance. Also they heard him ordering 
some one to lead them to the starboard main 
braces, and another to go forward and loose 
the jib. 

A moment later they heard something 
else too. 

The cry of two or three voices together, 
the voice of Charke, and then his trumpet 
tones exclaiming: 

“ My God, he’s overboard! ” 

And Bella, with the image of one man 
alone in her mind, reeled back toward the 
sofa where Mrs. Pooley lay, and gradually 
slid, fainting, on to the cabin floor by her 
side. 


CHAPTER XVII. 


FAREWELL, MY RIVAL! 

Had Bella known more about a ship and 
its intricacies she would have understood 
that, notwithstanding some one had un- 
doubtedly gone overboard, the sailor, whoso- 
ever he was, could not by any possibility have 
been one of those who had gone to help in 
squaring the yards. Instead, she would have 
been aware that such an accident could only 
have happened to some seaman who had 
either gone aloft or out on to the jib-boom. 
And, in fact, the latter was the case, the un- 
fortunate fellow, a man named Brown, falling 
off the boom while endeavouring to set the 
flying-jib, and being struck a moment later 
by the frame timbers forward as he fell; yet 
the unhappy sailor seemed still to have some 
life left in him, as those who rushed to the 
port side could see, since, as he was passed by 
the ship, he was observed to rise to the sur- 


192 


THE SEAFARERS. 


face, his head all shining with blood, and to 
strike out manfully. But what could that 
avail, since by the time the Emperor could 
be brought to the wind, and a life-buoy 
thrown overboard, he was half a mile astern? 
To lower the boats in time to save him would 
also have been an impossibility even if it could 
have been done; and, moreover, the swift- 
coming tropic darkness of the equator was at 
hand, while the man himself was by now be- 
coming invisible. 

“ Steer her course again!” called out 
Charke, therefore, to the man who was at the 
wheel, in a voice in which regret for the un- 
fortunate sailor was mingled with a tone de- 
noting some other sentiment that perhaps 
none would have been able to understand 
even though had they been swift to observe 
it, which in their excitement they were not; 
and consequently in a few moments the Em- 
peror of the Moon was once more heading to- 
ward where the Seychelles lay. 

What was that other sentiment which now 
pervaded the breast of this strong, masterful 
sailor — this man who had worked untiringly 
for hour after hour on stretch, and who 


FAREWELL, MY RIVAL! 


193 


seemed to rise triumphant over nature’s de- 
mand for both sleep and meals properly par- 
taken of — of the man who had not changed 
his clothes for three days, or ever had them off 
his back when he sought a quarter of an 
hour’s rest here or ten minutes’ there? What 
was this sentiment? Nothing but a certainty 
that this was the last voyage the ship was ever 
to make, a feeling of intense conviction which 
had been growing upon him for some time — 
that all in this ship were doomed. For he, at 
least, could see — he was not blind — yet — and, 
more than all else on board, perhaps — could 
feel — and his sight showed him things over 
the water, in the density of the atmosphere, 
even in the appearance of the brassy heavens 
above, which told him that ere long the slight 
whispering breeze which blew would be 
changed into a hurricane howling across the 
ocean. His feelings, his nerves, the moisture 
of his skin, corroborated also what his sight 
proclaimed. 

“ It will come,” he muttered to himself as 
now he paced the after-deck, his eyes never 
off the light sail that the ship was carrying. 
“ It will come soon. And then we are done 


194 


THE SEAFARERS. 


for, even though I get every inch of canvas 
off her first. This man’s death leaves me and 
three other sailors as the only persons to 
work the ship. It will be strange if, even 
under bare poles, we continue to swim.” 

Then, as he turned his head toward 
wdiere, now, Bella (who had soon recovered 
from her faintness) was standing talking 
with her uncle and her lover, he muttered an- 
other sentence to himself — a sentence which, 
should a romancist or a dramatist inspire 
one of his characters with it, would per- 
haps be deemed unnatural, yet which this man 
of iron will and firm determination muttered 
to himself as calmly now as he would have 
given an order to one of his few remaining 
sailors: 

“ If it blows, as I believe it will, twenty- 
four hours will see the end of us all. She — 
oh, my God! — she will be dead; but so will 
he and so shall I. Well, there’s consolation 
in that. If I can’t have her no more can he. 
That thought makes the end mighty cheap.” 

Then he strode toward those three stand- 
ing by the break of the poop, and touching his 
cap to Bella — he was, as she observed, a gen- 


FAREWELL, MY RIVAL! 


* 195 


tleman, and in all that became the outward 
semblance of a gentleman he never failed — he 
said quietly to the poor blind captain stand- 
ing by her side, with his fingers resting lightly 
on her arm: 

“We must get in all the sail, sir, now. 
There is a change coming — I know it, feel it. 
Also the glass stands very low; and since we 
cannot work the ship in a storm short-hand- 
ed as we are we had better begin at once. It 
will be pitch-dark in ten minutes and there is 
no moon.” 

“ Good God! ” exclaimed Pooley, “ what 
is to happen next? The glass low, you say? 
Well, that means a change of some sort, 
though not necessarily bad weather. What 
are these feelings you speak of, Charke? ” 

“ The feelings of a sailor,” he replied. 
“ You know them as well as I do. Ha! ” he 
exclaimed, “ there’s lightning in the south. 
No time’s to be lost!” Then he seized the 
boatswain’s whistle, which he had hung round 
his neck and used since the man himself had 
become disabled, and blew it as a signal to his 
three remaining hands to be ready for his or- 
ders. 


THE SEAFARERS. 


196 . 

“ Now, then,” he cried, “ up with you and 
stow the few sails there are. What do you 
say? ” — to one who muttered something — 
“ Tired — been working all day? Why, damn 
you! haven’t I been working, too?” Charke 
rarely swore, but he was impelled to do so 
now, especially as he had moved out of 
Bella’s hearing. “ Don’t you see that light- 
ning down there in the south? Do you want 
the ship to be blown over and to go to the 
bottom in her? Here, you stop at the 
wheel,” addressing the man who was already 
at it; “ we others can do it somehow. Follow 
me! ” and away he went to the top-sail yard, 
selecting the most arduous part of the busi- 
ness for himself, muttering also to himself 
even as he did so, “ Now, if I should go, too — 
fall off the yard — they are doomed beyond all 
help. Nothing then can save them!” Which 
thought caused a strange weird kind of smile 
to be on his face as he sprang up the ratlins. 

And, stirred to action by his own indomi- 
table energy, the men did set about the work 
and managed it somehow, the sails being 
stowed in a very unship-shape fashion (or 
what would have been an unship-shape fash- 


FAREWELL, MY RIVAL! 


197 


ion if the proper quantity of sailors had been 
there to do the work), and in such a manner 
that the first gust of the coming tempest 
would be as likely to blow them clear of {heir 
lashings as not. Still it was done at last, ! 
and not too soon either, since, ere they had 
concluded their work, the lightning was flash- 
ing incessantly and huge drops of rain were 
falling. 

“ It’s a south-westerly wind,” said Gilbert 
to Bella, turning his cheek toward it. 

“ Where will it blow us to now? ” 

Charke thought he knew as he listened to 
the remark, for he had returned to their vicin- 
ity after coming down from the top-sail yard, 
but he uttered never a word. Even now 
he loved the girl by their side too much to 
frighten her more than was necessary. But 
had he said that he knew that, short of a 
miracle, it must be the bottom of the ocean 
— as he did — she would probably not have 
heard him, since at this moment, with a 
devilish shriek, the gale was upon them — 
upon them and almost pooping the ship as it 
struck her right aft, and then driving her for- 
ward in the churned sea with a horrible sick- 


THE SEAFARERS. 


198 

ening motion, while, since she was fairly 
deeply laden, she recovered herself from the 
avalanche of water but slowly — an avalanche 
that, sweeping over the poop with a roar and 
a swish, took Bella and Gilbert off their feet 
and hurled them forward staggering, and buf- 
feted about against each other. 

“ Below — go below — all of you!” roared 
Charke to them and also to Pooley, who had 
himself been sent sliding along the deck, and 
was now hanging on to a belaying-pin, even 
as he called out to know where Bella was. 
“ Below, I say! We must close the hatches 
or she will have the sea in her. Below, 
quick! ” and rushing towards Bella he led 
her to the after companion, dragging Gilbert 
with his other hand and returning next for 
Pooley. 

And now the tropic lightning — that vio- 
let-hued lightning which is so beautiful, and 
also so sure a sign of awful turbulence in the 
elements — played incessantly on the ill- 
starred Emperor of the Moon; the seas were 
mountains at one moment, valleys at another. 
The ship, too, was rolling so that it seemed 
as if everything on her deck must be pitched 


FAREWELL, MY RIVAL! 


I 99 


off into the sea — as was, indeed, the case with 
many of the smaller things that went to form 
the raffle lying all about — and each time that 
she went over to port or starboard she took 
volumes over her side. Then a still more 
gigantic wave took her on her port bow and 
absolutely threw her up, it rolling a moment 
later under her counter and letting her drop 
directly afterward into the trough, while 
over her poop again came that which seemed 
to be, not a wave, but the whole Indian Ocean 
itself. 

Amidst it all Charke still stood at the 
wheel (he having sent the man forward), hold- 
ing on to it as perhaps few solitary men had 
ever held on to a wheel in such a sea before, 
his arms actually bars of iron, yet appearing 
to him as though deprived of all sense and 
feeling — stood there silent, determined, re- 
solved, awaiting death, knowing that it must 
come, and not dismayed, because it must come 
to that other, too — that man below in the 
saloon who loved and was beloved by Bella. 
Then suddenly he knew that he was not to 
die there alone at his post while his rival ex- 
pired in his sweetheart’s arms, or she in his; 


200 


THE SEAFARERS. 


he knew — discovered — that not alone to him 
was to belong all the bravery and the reso- 
lution. 

Creeping up from below, thanking God 
that the hatch had not yet been closed, feel- 
ing his way by his hands, gradually reaching 
the wheel — buffeted here and there — 
knocked down once — then up again — Gilbert 
Bampfyld crept to his side, and an instant 
later was fingering and then gripping the 
spokes. 

“ Let me help you! ” he roared, so as to be 
heard, feeling as he did so which way the 
other who already had hold of the spokes was 
exerting his force. “ Blind as I am, I can 
do that. Who are you? ” 

“Stephen Charke!” the other answered, 
also shrieking his name. “ Help, if you like, 
but it is useless. We are going! ” 

“ I know it,” Gilbert answered. “ Well, 
we will go down standing! ” 

And Charke, still endeavouring to hold 
up the ship, still to protract life from one 
moment to another, muttered inwardly, 
“ Curse him! he is a man. Worthy of her.” 
Then unceasingly he continued his work. 


FAREWELL, MY RIVAL! 


201 


wrenching, striving, endeavouring in every 
way to save the ship from being pooped or 
flung over as the waves took her and cast 
her up like a ball, or hurled her down like 
a falling house into the gaping, hellish 
troughs that lay below yawning for their 
victims. 

But still the lightning played upon the 
doomed craft, illuminating her from stem 
to stern, showing the foretop-gallant mast 
gone and the jib-boom carried away, broken 
off short three feet from the bowsprit head. 
Also it showed something else — something 
that, had he had time to think of aught but 
preventing the ship from falling off the course 
he was endeavouring to steer, might have 
struck a feeling of uncanny, wizard horror to 
his heart; for all the blind-stricken men for* 
ward had crept by now out of the forecastle 
and other places where they had herded, 
and were crawling about the foredeck, hold- 
ing on to whatever they could clutch — be- 
laying-pins, the fife rail, the racks, even the 
ring-bolts. Amongst them, too, was the 
tiger cub, an almost unrecognisable lump ex- 
cept for the topaz gleam which its eyes 


202 


THE SEAFARERS. 


emitted — a gleam that, as a sea which was in 
truth a cataract washed it from the fore- 
mast to where he stood, appeared to Charke 
malignant, devilish, threatening. And he 
heard those unhappy men’s voices, cursing, 
blaspheming, praying, roaring that they 
feared no death which they could see, but 
that they wanted to go neither to heaven nor 
hell enveloped in utter darkness. 

“ No honest Jack who ever sailed,” they 
screamed, “ feared a death that he could face, 
but we fear this! And if we had but our 
sight maybe there’d be no death at all.” 

“ Ay, but there would, though,” muttered 
Charke to himself — “there would. Ha! by 
God, look there! ” he cried aloud, forgetting 
that the only man who could hear his words 
was blind. The ship had given another hide- 
ous plunge — had wrenched herself as a giant 
might do in endeavouring to free himself from 
the cords that bound him — then down! 
down! down! she went into the hollows of 
the ocean, so that up above her on either side 
rose nothing but vast walls of sea — walls that 
would — that must — close together, Charke 
thought, fifty feet above their heads, leaving 


FAREWELL, MY RIVAL! 


203 

the ship beneath them. And then he turned 
to the other man by his side, saying calmly: 
“ Now is the time! You love Bella Waldron. 
So do I. And neither of us will ever set eyes 
on her again. Farewell, my rival! ” 


14 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

“ SHE WILL NEVER KNOW.” 

“ How in heaven’s name has she ever 
done it!” muttered Charke to himself three 
minutes later, as, dripping like a dog dragged 
out of a pond, he still stood by the wheel, 
holding on like a vice to the spokes. Also 
both he and Gilbert had each got their legs 
twisted in the radii to prevent them from slip- 
ping, since now the ship lay over frightfully 
to starboard and did not recover herself at 
all. “ Ah, well! ” he continued, “ it does not 
much matter how — another five minutes and 
over she goes — turtle. It is a hundred to one 
she has six feet of water below.” 

How had she done it! That was the 
wonder, the marvel — the more especially a 
wonder if, as Charke thought, she had six feet 
of water in her, since twice that amount 
would have taken her to the bottom even 

though she lay in the most tranquil waters of 
204 


“SHE WILL NEVER KNOW.' 


205 


the universe. It was impossible she could 
have done it, overloaded thus. Yet, water 
in her or not, she had accomplished a marvel- 
lous feat for any craft that ever left the ship- 
builders' yard; for from down below in 
those awful depths, with on either side of 
her, and glistening all around her in the glare 
of the lightning like the sides of a crevasse, 
those walls of sea, she had still risen above 
them, and had (a moment or so after they 
seemed to be closing in on her and shutting 
her out forever from the world above) been 
once more poised on the crest of a huge bil- 
low — had done it, and now lay listing over 
on to her starboard side, as some great 
wounded creature might do whose right ribs 
had all been broken in by the blows of a pole- 
axe. But still she travelled through the 
water in the darkness of the night, for now 
the lightning was ceasing, and also she car- 
ried no lighted lantern, since there were none 
to attend to such things, and even though 
there had been the beating of the gale 
would soon have extinguished it; travelled 
swiftly, too, cutting her way through billow 
and wave, taking in huge seas aft which swept 


20 6 


THE SEAFARERS. 


her decks, yet going still, but with now 
some of those spectral forms, those blind, 
groping men, disappeared forever, swept 
down the sloping deck by tons of water — 
down, and over into the ocean. And of the 
few, the three who had still their sight, one 
lay with a broken neck at the foot of the fore- 
deck companion-way, he having been flung 
down the hatchway head foremost; the other 
two were drunk. They had broken into the 
steward’s room when there were none to con- 
trol them, had found some bottles of beer, as 
well as one of brandy and one of rum — and 
this was the result! 

At this moment the wheel spun round in 
Gilbert’s hands, dragging him with it in its 
revolution, so that he thought he would have 
to leave go or be thrown in a somersault over 
into the sea; then, as he forced it back, he 
heard Charke’s voice bellowing at him: 

“ Can you hold her up for five minutes? 
I can grasp the spokes no more. I am done. 
I would not have let go like that — God knows 
I wouldn’t! — but I have lost all sensation in 
my arms and hands. I will lead Fagg out; 
perhaps he can help.” 


SHE WILL NEVER KNOW.' 


20 / 


“ I may hold her steady,” Gilbert an- 
swered, “ but no more. What can a blind, 
stricken man do? ” 

“ It is enough,” Charke said. “ Sight 
would not aid you to do more. And, after 
all, it is of no use. We but prolong life for 
nothing. Yet, here goes! ” 

He made his way below now, falling, 
sliding down the companion-ladder, tumbling 
along in the darkness to where he judged the 
door of Fagg’s cabin was; fell over things 
that had been hurled out of the steward’s 
pantry on , the port side — broken dishes, 
plates, tin utensils, potatoes peeled ready 
for cooking, and a joint of meat — felt all these 
with his feet and benumbed hands, and found 
a bottle, too, which his smell told him was 
rum. Then he tore the cork out of it with 
his teeth and drained a tumbler full of the raw 
spirits. That gave him fresh life and energy; 
the blood coursed and danced through his 
veins again, his fingers began to feel, his arms 
to strengthen. Sliding back the door of 
Fagg’s cabin he called him by name and, re- 
ceiving no answer, felt in the berth to see if 
he was there, while even as he discovered that 


208 


THE SEAFARERS. 


the bed was empty he trod on an upturned 
face — then stooped down and felt it and the 
head and found the latter all broken; where- 
by he understood what had happened to the 
unfortunate young officer, and that he had 
either been hurled out of his bed against a 
bulkhead or, being out it, had been dashed 
to death. 

He would have gone back now to relieve 
Gilbert, was turning to do so, when his eye 
caught the glimmer of a light down the nar- 
row gangway leading to the saloon, and he 
knew at once that somehow those within 
had managed to get the bracket-lamp over 
the table lit; whereupon he went toward that 
saloon, intent on seeing how those who were 
in it — especially how one in it — were prepar- 
ing to meet their end. Were they bearing 
up bravely? Was she — was that girl who 
maddened him, that girl through his unre- 
quited love for whom, he knew, he felt, that all 
his better qualities were being driven out of 
him — preparing to meet her death nobly, val- 
iantly? 

The sight he saw might have struck hor- 
ror to a bolder, better man than he — a sight 


SHE WILL NEVER KNOW.’ 


209 


more fitting to meet the eyes of one who 
gazed into a catacomb or charnel-house than 
into what had been not long before a pretty, 
bright saloon. Mrs. Pooley lay flat upon her 
back, moaning feebly, her stout body rolling 
backward and forward with every swing of 
the ship, every plunge it made; the captain 
was on his face, and above him lay half the 
debris of the shattered, sea-tossed cabin. 

But Bella! She frightened — startled him. 

“ The others may be dead,” he whispered, 
“ but she — surely she is alive. God! how her 
eyes stare, yet — yet — how lovely she is still! ” 

The girl was sitting upright upon the sa- 
loon sofa, her hands gripping the head of it 
as though, all unconscious as she appeared to 
be, she still knew that she must do that to 
save herself from being flung down, and her 
lips moved faintly. Then he wrenched the 
bottle of rum from out his pocket — he having 
put it there with a view to administering 
some to Gilbert when he regained the deck, 
his rival though he was — and moistened her 
lips with it. 

“ Miss Waldron — Bella! ” he murmured, 
allowing himself in those last moments the 


210 


THE SEAFARERS. 


luxury of calling her by the name that he had 
whispered so often softly to himself — “ Bella! 
for God’s sake say something. Tell me that 
you are not dying! ” 

And she did whisper something — a word 
that he heard above all the roar of the hurri- 
cane thundering aloft, above the awful con- 
cussions on the ship’s sides as again and again 
the tons of water struck at her, heavily, sav- 
agely, and as also she struck at them in her 
maimed progress; heard above the rattle of 
the ship’s furniture rolling about, and the 
sickening thumps of the unlashed piano as it 
beat against the stern of the mizzen-mast — 
whispered a word or so. 

“Gilbert!” those white, cold lips mut- 
tered — “ Gilbert, my darling; we are dying 
together! Clasp me to your arms now! 
Hold me in them to the end! ” 

With a moan, not a curse — a curse 
would not have availed or eased him now — he 
started back in that dim cabin, hurling the 
bottle from him as he did so. His rival — 
his rival again — even now! His name the 
last words on her lips, his image the last thing 
present to her in the hour of death! Then he 


“SHE WILL NEVER KNOW.” 2 II 

fled from the cabin back again to his post, 
back to the wheel to which he swore he would 
lash himself, and so go down thinking of 
nothing but his duty. There was, his fevered 
mind told him, nothing but that — but his 
duty — left. Then as he went along he no- 
ticed, distraught although he was, that the 
vessel was making under him a kind of rota- 
tory movement ; seemed, indeed, to be gliding 
round and round in a circle, although beaten 
back more than once by the awful force be- 
neath her. 

“He has left the wheel !” he cried, his 
swift and accurate seaman’s knowledge and 
intelligence telling him at once what had hap- 
pened. “ Is he mad — or dead? ” 

And clutching, grasping at everything 
that offered a hold to him, he forced himself 
back to where the wheel stood, only to find 
when there that Gilbert was lying senseless 
by it; senseless but not dead, as one thrust 
of his hand under the other’s wet clothes to- 
ward the region of the heart told him very 
well. An instant later he had resumed his 
hold on the spokes, and was endeavouring to 
put the ship on her course before the howling 


212 


THE SEAFARERS. 


winds, to keep her straight on into the dark, 
impenetrable depth of blackness ahead of 
her. 

Again the marvel was she did not go over, 
did not suddenly sink beneath the weight of 
water that was pouring over her on all sides — 
sink like a stone. And he began to tell him- 
self now that, as she had borne up so long, as 
the storm could by no possibility become 
worse, and must at last abate, there was still 
a hope. A hope of what? That he and 
Bella might both be saved. Be saved and 
saved alone together. “ She is alive and I 
am alive. The others are dead or dying. 
Oh, God! if she and I are spared ” 

But that sentence was never finished! 

For, as he partly uttered it, there came 
an awful crash — a crash that hurled him back 
and then flung him over and over on the poop 
— a grinding, horrible concussion, followed 
by the most terrible thumps and by the sud- 
den cessation of the ship’s passage, and a 
moment later she heeled over, though still 
beating and bumping heavily, so that now 
the water poured into her forward, and 
gradually her forepart was entirely immersed; 


SHE WILL NEVER KNOW.’ 


213 


but still the pounding and the awful grating 
continued, growing worse and worse. 

“She has struck! ” he muttered to himself. 
“ Struck on a reef or a rock! The end has 
truly come! ” 

In a moment he had picked himself up 
from the poop deck and, difficult though 
it was to move with the vessel beating 
backward and forward, had dragged himself 
down to the saloon — down to where Bella 
was, the woman whom he would save or die 
with. 

The lamp was gone out with the concus- 
sion, all was in darkness, and above the roar 
of the tempest outside he could hear the fur- 
niture beating about the saloon as the ship 
swayed and wrenched. Yet he went on to- 
ward where he had left her ten minutes be- 
fore, on toward the sofa on which she had 
been sitting almost unconscious. 

She was not there, he found, but instead 
lying at the foot of it insensible. Insensible, 
he knew, because to his words, his summons, 
she returned no answer. Then in a moment 
he had seized her in his arms, had lifted her 
up, and with her head upon his shoulder was 


214 


THE SEAFARERS. 


groping his way with unsteady, stumbling 
feet toward the gangway. 

Her head upon his shoulder now, her hair 
brushing his face now — in this moment — in 
the hour of destruction for one, for both 
of them! Her head upon his shoulder! And 
he a mortal man! It was beyond endurance, 
more than he could bear! Acknowledging 
this, recognising it, he slightly moved with 
the hand which was round those shoulders 
that face so close to him — that face so close, 
so cold and chill — and kissed her long and 
passionately. 

“ She will never know,” he muttered — 
“ never know. Yet — yet — it has made death 
sweeter. Death! The death that will be on 
us ere many more moments have passed.” 

Still, near as that death was, so near as to 
be beyond all doubt, as much beyond all 
doubt as that the rocking, shivering ship was 
breaking up fast, he felt his way toward 
where he knew the life-buoys were and rap- 
idly fitted one on to each of them, while as 
he did so he murmured again and again: 

“ If any are saved it can only be she and I ; 
yet of that there is no hope.” 


CHAPTER XIX. 


“ I ALMOST DREADED THIS MAN ONCE.” 

The Indian Ocean lay beneath the purple- 
scarlet rays of the setting sun as calmly and 
as peacefully as though across its treacherous 
bosom nothing more violent than a cat’s-paw 
had ever swept. Indeed, so calm and peace- 
ful was the spaceless sheet of cobalt that al- 
most one might have thought they gazed 
upon some quiet tarn or inland lake, shut in 
and warded off from any breeze that might 
blow or any tempest that could ever roar; 
only he who should stand upon the beach of a 
little island upon whose white stones the surf 
hissed gently as it receded slowly and faintly 
— as though it were asleep and languid — 
would have known that for thousands of 
miles ahead of him there was nothing to op- 
pose the tempests of the east and south or 
prevent them from lashing that now calm and 


21 6 


THE SEAFARERS. 


placid ocean into madness or from exerting its 
power of awful destruction. 

A little island set in that glittering sap- 
phire sea, with all around its circumference of 
five miles a belt of white bleached stone and 
sand, and with, inland and running up from 
the belt, green, grassy slopes in which grew 
tall palm trees, vast bushes or tufts of bana- 
nas, orange and lemon trees, mangoes, and 
yams. There, too, were grassy dells through 
which limpid streams of pure cool water ran 
until they mingled with the salter ocean; 
there the turtle-dove cooed from guava and 
tamarind tree, the quails and pintados ran 
about upon the white silvery sands, and, to 
complete all these natural advantages, neither 
mosquito nor sand-fly was known. 

A little island girt by coral reefs — the 
ocean’s teeth — strong, fierce, and jagged; 
teeth that can rip the copper sheathing off a 
belated vessel as easily as a man can rip the 
skin from off the island’s pink and golden ba- 
nanas; teeth that can thrust themselves a 
dozen or twenty feet into the bowels of for- 
lorn and castaway barks and tear them all to 
pieces as the tusk of the “ must ” elephant 


I ALMOST DREADED THIS MAN ONCE.’ 


tears the bowels of its victims — a little isl- 
and, one of a thousand in that sometimes 
smiling, sometimes devilish sea, such as are 
in the Chagos Archipelago, or the Seychelles, 
or the Cormoras, and, like so many of those 
islands, untrod, unvisited by man. Unvisited 
because, where all are equally and bounteous- 
ly supplied by Nature, there is no need for any 
ship to draw near this solitary speck that is 
guarded from all approach by those belts of 
coral, and also because to this small island 
there is no natural harbour should rough 
winds blow. 

Now, as still the setting sun went swiftly 
down amidst its regal panoply of purple and 
violet and crimson, while up above those hues 
its rays shot forth great fleaks and flames of 
amber gold, it was not uninhabited — not 
desolate of all human life. Upon a grassy 
slope a man lay, his head bound up with linen 
bands, one of his hands swathed, too, in simi- 
lar wrappings, and his eyes were closed as 
though he was sleeping or dead. To her who 
gazed on him it seemed almost as if it must 
be the latter — the greater, the more everlast- 
ing sleep — that had fallen on him. 


2 1 8 


THE SEAFARERS. 


For there were two people in this island 
now, she who thus looked down on the 
prostrate man being a woman clad in a long 
dress which once had been of a soft, delicate 
white fabric, but now was stained and 
smeared with many splashes and marks, and 
was rough and crumpled with hard usage and 
by the effects of sea-water. Her hair, too, 
was all dishevelled, uncombed and unbrushed, 
tossed up in a great mass upon her head, 
bound with a piece of ordinary tape. And 
still she was as beautiful as she had ever been 
— beautiful in this negligence, which was the 
result of shipwreck and of battlement with 
tempests, of cruel buffetings from merciless 
waves and jagged rocks — beautiful, though 
on her face and in her eyes was now the som- 
bre beauty of a despair and misery too deep 
for words; for he whom she loved, he whose 
wife she was to have been, was not upon that 
island with them, had no more been heard of 
since, in the arms of Stephen Charke, she had 
been plunged into the sea, and in those arms 
borne to safety and to life. 

She gazed down on him now in the last 
glimmering beams of the golden light that 


“I ALMOST DREADED THIS MAN ONCE.” 2 ig 

shot athwart the island, regarded him with 
an expression in her glance which caused that 
look to be not altogether a reflex of her own 
misery and despair — an expression that 
seemed to denote a supreme pity, an almost 
divine regret for him who lay before and be- 
neath her in pain and suffering. 

“ How brave — how strong he was! ” she 
murmured inwardly now, her lips not moving. 
“ How he fought with that storm — fought 
with death to save me and himself. No! ” 
she broke off, still uttering her meditations to 
her own heart alone — “ why do him an in- 
justice even in my thoughts? It was not to 
save me and him, but me alone. There was 
but one desire in his soul — to save me! ” 

She turned and went to a small heap of 
fruit that she had gathered earlier in the day 
and selected one of the great pink bananas — 
pink with a lustrous beauty which those who 
only see them when they arrive in northern 
climes could never believe they have once 
glowed with — then she took a scooped-out 
cocoa-nut shell and, going to a little bab- 
bling rill that ran through the grassy defile, 

filled it with water, after which she re- 
15 


220 


THE SEAFARERS. 


turned to where the other lay and, kneeling 
by his side, gazed on him again. 

“ My God!” she whispered, “I almost 
dreaded this man once. Feared him for I 
knew not what. Feared him — him! And 
he has been my saviour! ” 

He seemed to know that she was by his 
side, near him, since, even as she murmured 
these words to herself, Stephen Charke 
opened his eyes and gazed into hers, a faint 
smile appearing in them. 

“ You are better? ” she asked, as she gave 
him the shell with the water in it, which he 
was not too weak to be able to take and raise 
to his lips, while she tore off the rind of the 
banana. “ Your forehead,” she went on, put- 
ting now her hand upon it calmly, as a sister 
might, “ is cooler. Are you still in pain? ” 

“ No,” he answered, “ no. Only very 
weak. Are — are — any more saved from 
that?” and he directed his glance to where, 
two hundred yards off from the island, there 
lay something protruding above the water 
which looked like the rounded back of a 
whale, but was, in truth, the torn and lacer- 
ated keel of the Emperor of the Moon. In 


“I ALMOST DREADED THIS MAN ONCE.” 2 2I 

her last struggles, in her last convulsions as 
the gale had hurled her on to the coral reef, 
she had turned almost completely over. 

“ No,” she replied, her face an awful mir- 
ror of despair and anguish. “ None are saved 
but you and I. Oh! ” and she buried that 
face in her hands and wept aloud — piteously, 
heartbrokenly. 

“ God rest their souls! ” he said solemnly. 
“God pity them! Why I, too, should have 
been spared except to save you I do not 
know. I might as well have gone with 
them.” 

“No, no!” she cried. “No, Mr. 
Charke. You must be spared for better days, 
for greater things. Oh,” she exclaimed, 
“ how bravely you battled with it all! Uncle 
told us,” she went on through her tears, 
“ when we were below, and before I became 
insensible, that your efforts were super- 
human; that if the ship could be made to live 
through the storm it would be by you alone. 
And,” she continued, “ how you saved me I 
do not know, only — only — I wish I had gone 
with him — with Gilbert.” 

“Nay,” he said, “nay! Do not say 


222 


THE SEAFARERS. 


that. And — and — I ask you to believe that, 
had it been possible, I would have saved him 
too. But it was impossible. Impossible to 
so much as slip a life-buoy over his shoulders. 
The end was at hand, the ship broken in half. 
It was impossible/’ he repeated earnestly. 

“ How,” she asked, as she sat by his side 
gazing out across the calm, waveless sea 
through the fast-coming tropic night, and 
watching the great stars — almost as big as 
northern moons — sparkling, incandescent- 
like, in the blue heavens above, “ how did 
you do it? I remember nothing till I found 
myself lying there” — and she pointed down to 
the white sand from which there came, 
through the sultry night, the gentle hiss of 
the sea — “ and saw you lying near me dead, as 
I thought.” 

“ Nor do I remember — or very little more 
than you can do. I dragged you from the 
saloon and, after fixing a life-buoy on to each 
of us, leapt into the sea with you, striking 
out vigorously to avoid the ship. Also I can 
recall my battlings with the waves for a few 
moments — only a few — then feeling my 
breath knocked out of me, and then noth- 


“I ALMOST DREADED THIS MAN ONCE.” 223 

ing more until I came to and found you look- 
ing at me here. It was the life-buoys that 
saved us.” 

“ In God’s mercy — under His provi- 
dence. Yet — yet — if it were not wicked to 
say so, if it were not for my dear mother at 

home — I — I should ” 

“ No, no,” he almost moaned. “ No, 
no. Not that!” Then after a moment or 
so of silence he said: “ Do you know how 
long we have been here? Can you guess? ” 

“ This is the second night, I suppose,” she 
answered. “ When I came to yesterday 
morning, I imagine it was the first one after 
the wreck.” 

“ Possibly. And you have seen nothing 
pass at sea, either near or far off? ” 

“ Nothing. Yet I have gazed seaward all 
the time it has been light on each day. 
Where do you think we are? ” 

“If the island is uninhabited I think it 
must be one of the Cormora group, since it 
can scarcely be part of the Chagos Archipel- 
ago — they are too far to the east. And all 
the others in the Indian Ocean, certainly in 
this part of it, are inhabited.” 


224 


THE SEAFARERS. 


She made no further reply now, did not 
say, what almost every other woman in her 
position would undoubtedly have said, name- 
ly, that she hoped they would in some way 
be taken off the island, for in absolute fact 
she did not hope so. To be saved from this 
desolation, to be put on board some ship 
which might be going to any part of the 
world, even if that part should be England it- 
self, meant leaving Gilbert behind — leaving 
him to his ocean grave. And she would not, 
certainly she would not yet, consent to 
believe that he had met with such a grave. 
The Emperor of the Moon was still there, a 
part of her above the water, although she was 
almost turned upside down, or “ turned tur- 
tle,” as she knew the sailors called it, and — 
and — might not some of those who were in 
her when she struck be still sheltering, cling- 
ing to some portion of the wreck that hap- 
pened to be above water? She did not know 
much about ships, this awful, fateful voyage 
being her only experience, wherefore she 
thought and hoped and prayed that such a 
chance as this which she imagined in her 
mind might be possible. Also, she remem- 


I ALMOST DREADED THIS MAN ONCE.’ 


bered that Gilbert and her uncle were both 
blind. Therefore, if they were still alive, they 
could not cast themselves into the sea to es- 
cape out of the vessel; they would not, in- 
deed, know that there was any island close 
to them, and probably would imagine the 
ship was wrecked upon some reef or rock, so 
that it would be doubly dangerous to venture 
to leave her. And, again, even if they could 
by any wild chance have guessed that there 
was an island near, how could they, in their 
darkness, have known which way to proceed 
to reach it? 

Thus by such arguments she had endeav- 
oured to solace her sad, aching heart, and 
now, as she rose to leave Stephen Charke for 
the night, she put into words the thought 
which had been present to her mind from al- 
most the first moment she had discovered 
that they themselves were saved. 

“ Do you think,” she asked, standing 
there gazing down on him once more — “ do 
you think any who were in the ship when we 
escaped can be still alive? Is there any hope 
of that?” 

He looked up at her swiftly as she made 


226 


THE SEAFARERS. 


the suggestion, then — because he felt that it 
was useless to encourage such vain longings 
— because, also, he knew that such a thing 
was impossible, absolutely, entirely impos- 
sible — he said: “No, no! it cannot be. 
Those who were in the cabin would be sub- 
merged as the ship went over, and those who 
were on the deck would be thrown into the 
sea.” 

She gave a bittei sigh as he answered, 
and it went to his heart to hear that sigh, 
since now his pity for her was heroic, sub- 
lime in its self-abnegation, as great as his 
love and adoration — then she asked: 

“ And where was Gilbert — Lieutenant 
Bampfyld? ” 

“ He — he — was lying by the wheel. God 
help him! He was a brave, noble officer. 
Even in his blindness he had crept up to as- 
sist at the wheel, was determined to do some- 
thing toward saving the ship if possible. 
Then — then — he fell down from exhaustion. 
He ” 

“ Is dead! ” she muttered, in a voice that 
sounded like a knell. “ Dead! Oh, my 
God, he is dead! I wish I were dead too.” 


CHAPTER XX. 


“ I DO BELIEVE YOU.” 

She moved away from him now that the 
night was at hand, being about to seek a little 
knoll that was hollowed out underneath so 
that it presented the appearance of a small 
cave of about six feet in depth and the same 
in breadth. Above it there grew — tall, state- 
ly, and feathery — two cocoa trees close to- 
gether, around it trailed tropical creepers and 
huge-leaved plants which bore upon them 
large white flowers. It was into this cave she 
had crept the night before and had slept, and 
to it now she intended to go again, it being, as 
she thought, better to pass the night in than 
the open air. Yet, had she but known, it 
offered her no necessary shelter, since in 
truth none was required, especially at this 
season. Dews scarcely ever arose in the isl- 
and, there being little if any of that damp- 
ness at night for which the poisonous deadly 

227 


228 


THE SEAFARERS. 


west coast of Africa is so evilly renowned, and 
one might keep in the open air as free from 
the dangers of exhalations as in any closed 
place that could be devised here. 

But not being aware of this — as how 
should she, who hitherto had known so little of 
the world outside London — outside England? 
— she spoke to Stephen Charke ere she left 
him for the night, saying: “ I wish there was 
something to cover you with, something to 
protect you Yet there is nothing — not a rag.” 

“ It is of no importance,” he said, looking 
up at her, and able to see her face, pale and 
ghostlike, by the light of the stars — “ of 
none whatever. I shall be able to lie here 
and sleep very well. There is no fear of damp 
nor rheumatism in all this locality. I know it 
well. And to-morrow I hope to be able to 
get up and go about the island. Perhaps 
beyond that mountain at the back there may 
be some signs of human habitation, of hu- 
man life. Do not think of me. Good-night. 
Sleep well — try to sleep well! ” 

“ Good-night,” she answered. “ Good- 
night; ” and then she slowly withdrew to the 
cave in the little knoll, and so left him. 


I DO BELIEVE YOU.’ 


229 


But when she had gone, and had lain her- 
self down upon the soft, dry sand within that 
cave, sleep refused to come to her. The 
night before she had slept long and soundly, 
perhaps because of all that she had gone 
through, and because, also, she was battered 
and bruised and weak after her immersion in 
the sea and the contact with the rocks; but 
to-night she could not do so — her mind was 
now triumphant over her body; the hour of 
that mind’s agony was upon her. And she 
bent and swayed beneath this agony, recog- 
nised, acknowledged, all the ruin that had 
fallen on her future life and hopes and dreams 
of happiness to come. 

Her lover, her future husband, was gone — 
dead — her heart was broken; there was in 
actual fact no future before her. She had 
loved him madly, blindly, almost from the 
first time she had set eyes on him, and now — 
yes, he was dead! There was nothing more. 
She would never love any other man, none 
other could ever find his way into her heart 
as Gilbert Bampfyld had done, nor set every 
pulse and fibre in her body stirring, nor cause 
her to thank God when she awoke each morn- 


230 


THE SEAFARERS. 


in g that another day had dawned, when, even 
though she might not see him, she could still 
pass many waking hours in thinking of him. 
No! No other man would ever have the 
power to cause all that; henceforth, if she 
ever left this island alive, it would be to return 
to a joyless, hopeless life, a woman widowed 
ere she had become a wife. 

Thus she thought and mused as she lay in 
the cave, her head supported on one hand, 
while she looked out on all that devilish, cruel 
waste of waters which had hurled the ship to 
its destruction and slain almost every soul on 
board her — the waters which now, like some 
wanton triumphing in the ruin and destruc- 
tion that she has wrought, lay smiling before 
her in the rays of a crescent moon which was 
peeping above the eastern horizon. Indeed, 
the glimmer which this young moon sent 
shimmering along the torpid sea was not 
unlike the sickly false smile that a wanton’s 
lips might wear in the hour of her victim’s 
ruin — the smile that bespeaks not “ the paint- 
ing of a sorrow,” but “ a face without a 
heart.” 

A little breeze sprang up now, a ripple soft 


“I DO BELIEVE YOU.’ 


231 


as a lover’s kiss, balmy, too — as it played 
amongst all the rich tropic vegetation of the 
island — as a young, pure girl’s breath, and 
she saw that her fellow-castaway perceived it, 
since he turned himself so as to bring his form 
toward it, doubtless to cool his heated face 
and to get relief from the warm, tepid air that 
hung all around — air that was like the atmos- 
phere of a Turkish bath. And this removed 
her thoughts from her own sorrows into the 
direction of those griefs which must be his — 
toward this brave, valiant man who had 
saved her life at, as she knew must be the case, 
the risk of his own. His lot, too, was sad, she 
recognised — sad because he loved her, as it 
would have been the maddest affectation for 
her to pretend to doubt, and because she knew 
that never would this love attain that which it 
hungered for. Yet, all the same, there had 
come into her heart a feeling of intense sorrow 
for him — a sorrow and pity that had welled up 
into her bosom and was almost holy in its 
depth and purity. 

“To love and lose, as I have done,” she 
murmured; “ to love and never win, as is the 
case with him. Oh, God! could there be 


232 


THE SEAFARERS. 


aught to make our bitterness — our lot — more 
terrible? ” 

Suddenly she started and raised herself 
higher with her elbow, her nerves quivering, 
her heart beating violently, her eyes staring 
intently into the shade beneath a copse in 
which grew in wild profusion a tangled mass 
of cocoa trees and tamarinds, of orange 
bushes and lemon trees, and into which now 
the newly risen moon’s rays were glinting. 

For she had seen something moving 
there, something creeping, crawling near the 
ground — stealthily, secretly — as though de- 
sirous to approach the spot where they were 
both so near together without being heard or 
seen. What new horror was this that ap- 
proached them thus in the night, that crept 
in ambush toward them as though intent on 
secret murder and attack — what? Some 
native of this horrid region lusting for the 
strangers’ blood, or some wild beast as fierce? 

Her tongue cleaved to her mouth — she 
could feel that the roof of her mouth was be- 
coming dry — she tried to scream — and failed! 

And still close to the earth that thing 
crept — nearer — nearer — and once, as it either 


“I DO BELIEVE YOU.’ 


233 


pushed some underbrush aside or came more 
into view, a ray of the moon glistened on a 
pair of eyes, illuminating the iris for a mo- 
ment. Then she found her voice and 
shrieked aloud: 

“ Mr. Charke — Mr. Charke! there is 
something creeping toward us. Save us — 
save us! ” 

In a moment he was endeavouring to 
spring to his feet, but that he could not do 
owing to his soreness and contusions; yet, 
nevertheless, he staggered up a moment later 
and gazed around, wishing that he had some 
weapon to his hand. 

That cry of Bella’s — it rang along the 
desolate beach as may be no woman’s voice 
had ever rung before — brought matters to a 
crisis. There was a rush, a spring from the 
creature that had by now crawled so near to 
them — a spring which hurled Charke back, 
reeling, as the thing passed him and then 
brought it close to Bella, about and around 
whom it at once began to gambol rudely and 
roughly, as some great watch-dog might 
who had found its lost mistress. 

The creature was Bengalee, the tiger cub, 


234 


THE SEAFARERS. 


and in some way it, if nothing else, was saved 
from the wreck of the Emperor of the Moon. 

“Oh!” cried Bella half fearfully, as its 
furious bounds and leaps, which even in her 
nervousness she could not but construe into 
a wild, savage joy on its part at once more be- 
ing in her presence, “ it is Bengalee. Oh, 
thank God! ” 

“ Thank God? ” Charke repeated, not un- 
derstanding; “thank God for what?” 

“ It is a sign,” she said, “ a sign that we 
are not the only ones who have escaped. 
Think! think! If this creature could get 
ashore so — so — may others — human beings 
— have done!” 

For a moment he said nothing, content- 
ing himself with watching the exultation of 
the creature, and in reflecting that it was her 
shriek which had told it who those were to 
whom it had drawn so near — perhaps, if 
stung by hunger and privation, with a vastly 
different intention from that of fondling 
either of them! And he did think of what 
she hinted in connection with its safety, and 
its having reached the island alive, as well as 
that safety pointing to the fact that others — 


I DO BELIEVE YOU.' 


235 


human beings — might also have done so; 
only he knew, and, knowing, refrained from 
saying, that her deduction was by no means 
accurate. This animal had been on the deck 
when the ship heeled over on the reef, was 
confined only in a locker, from which it might 
easily have found its way out in its terror, or, 
indeed, might have fallen out of; but it was 
an animal and its blindness had left it! Gil- 
bert Bampfyld had also been on the deck, 
Charke remembered, but he was still blind. 
There was no analogy of the tiger cub to 
any human soul on board. 

“You do not answer/’ she said, as now 
Bengalee lay panting at her feet, its rough 
evidences of delight having ceased for the 
time — “ do not speak. You think there is 
no likelihood of any others being saved from 
the wreck! ” 

“ I cannot think so. Heaven knows that 
if I could comfort you with such hopes I 
would. But — ” and now he repeated aloud 
those silent thoughts and arguments of a 
moment ago, while as he did so he saw in 
the moonlight that she turned from him; he 

heard her whisper low, “ Heaven help me! ” 
16 


236 


THE SEAFARERS. 


Then because her misery and woe struck 
like a knife to his heart, he said: 

“ To-morrow, if I am strong enough, as I 
think I shall be, I will make a journey round 
the island and explore every spot upon it 
where — if — if — any one should have, by God’s 
mercy, been fortunate enough to reach the 
land, I must light upon them. Believe 
me, nothing shall be left undone that I 
can do.” 

“I do believe you!” she cried. “I do, 
indeed. Ah, Mr. Charke!” she almost 
wailed, “ how good and noble you are. Oh, 
that such goodness, such nobility, must go 
forever unrequited!” 

“ That,” he answered, and she also could 
see by the aid of the moon’s rays how on his 
face there came a wan smile — a smile that had 
not even the ghost of happiness in it — “ that 
is not to be thought of. Never! Let us put 
away forever all thoughts of my desires; let 
us think only of what we have to do — to 
find, first, whether in Providence there should 
be any others who have escaped from the 
wreck, and, next, how we are to escape out of 
this. If there are other islands near here 


I DO BELIEVE YOU. 1 


237 


which are inhabited, no matter by whom or 
what, it may be easy.” 

“ And if not?” 

“ Then we must wait until, by some signal 
or other which I may devise, we can attract 
the attention of a passing vessel. Beyond 
this I can think of nothing.” 

“ Oh! ” she exclaimed, “ much as I long 
to return home now to England, to my 
mother — I think only of her now, have none 
other of whom to think — yet — yet — ah! I 
could not go till I was sure, sure beyond all 
possibility of doubt, that Gilbert was not here 
or somewhere near. Think if he should be 
still alive and blind and wounded — unable to 
help himself! Oh! it would be worse al- 
most than to know that he was dead.” 

“ I do think,” Charke answered, “ I un- 
derstand. And until we are sure — one way 
or another — we will not go — not even though 
rescue came to-morrow.” 

Then, looking down at the tiger cub 
which had now risen to its feet again, and 
was pacing restlessly about with the sinuous 
movements peculiar to its race, he said: 
“ But there is also one other thing that must 


238 


THE SEAFARERS. 


be done. That creature is now beyond con- 
trol, even of you; and these beasts are 
treacherous to the core. If it is to live and 
we are to live also, it must be secured — made 
prisoner — otherwise something terrible will 
happen. I know it — feel sure of it ! ” 


CHAPTER XXL 


WASHED ASHORE. 

They had both slept again by the time 
that morning broke with the suddenness 
of the tropics, and with the coming of the 
sun, heralded by the pale primrose green hue 
that all who have been ’twixt Capricorn and 
Cancer know so well, followed by the vermil- 
ion and golden shafts of light and then the 
deep blood-red tinge which suffuses all the 
horizon, slept uneasily, each in their place, 
and with, near the opening to the little cave 
under the knoll, the tiger lying tranquilly, as 
though keeping watch and ward over her 
whom probably it deemed its friend and mis- 
tress. Yet ever and again, as she, awaking to 
regard it more than once, because of the 
fear that Stephen’s words had engendered in 
her mind, saw very well, with the yellow eyes 
peering out restlessly from their closed slits 

of eyelids, the iris of each eye itself a verti- 

239 


240 


THE SEAFARERS. 


cal slit also, and she acknowledged that 
Charke had spoken aright that the time had 
come for the creature to be either imprisoned 
or made away with. All its evil instincts 
were undoubtedly being developed with its 
growth; soon they would have obtained their 
full force and be perhaps exerted. It was 
time. 

But now the dawn was come, the blood- 
red of the eastern sky was plainly visible and 
the birds of the island were twittering to each 
other and pluming themselves; whereupon the 
girl rose and left the cave, passing by the 
creature lying so close to her as though in 
fear of arousing it; in actual fear of it, in- 
deed, not knowing but what it might turn 
and rend her at any moment, for it was big 
and strong enough to do so now, its size be- 
ing that of a large retriever or a year-old mas- 
tiff. She — or he, even, that stalwart, muscular 
sailor — would probably have had little chance 
against it if it had set upon them. Both were 
unarmed and both were weakened and broken 
down by their struggles in the tempest-tossed 
waves. 

Charke, seeing the girl rise from her re- 


WASHED ASHORE. 


24I 


cumbent position, rose also, quickly and 
quietly, and came toward her, while as he 
did so he said: “ Now, to-day is the time for 
me to make that search round the island 
which I promised you. We will but eat a 
little fruit and then I will set out.” 

“ Shall I go with you,” she asked, as/ 
taking up the cocoa-nut shell, she turned to 
go toward the rivulet that ran at her feet, 
“ or is it better for me to remain here? Per- 
haps, too, it may be more than I can do. Or, 
indeed,” she hastened to add, “ more than 
you can accomplish in one day, and in such 
heat as there will be. Oh, Mr. Charke! ” she 
continued, “ you are not strong enough to 
undertake it yet.” 

“ I feel strong enough this morning,” he 
replied, “ and if I cannot make the whole 
tour of the place in one day, I can at least do 
a considerable portion of it. I will begin at 
once, before the sun becomes too fierce. 
But as for you, perhaps it would be best if 
you stayed here. The outlook from this por- 
tion of the island is, I think, that from which 
any ship that happened to pass would be most 
likely to be observed. You see, we look 


242 


THE SEAFARERS. 


west from here, toward where Africa lies, 
and vessels use that track in preference to 
running more out into the open.” 

“ I will do anything you suggest,” she 
said — “ anything you think will be for the 
best; only — ” and again there came upon her 
face that stricken look which made his heart 
so sad for her, and which, whenever he ob- 
served it, caused him to bury every sorrow of 
his own in a more profound and unselfish one 
for her — “ only — you know — I — I — at pres- 
ent — just at present — for a day or so — do not 
wish to see a ship come here to rescue us.” 

“ I know, I know,” he answered, not 
daring to keep his eyes fixed full upon that 
lovely but unhappy face. “ I know. Well, 
we will not look out for rescue yet. But still 
I think you had better stay here. We do not 
know for certain the size of this island; it is 
only guess-work on my part. It may be too 
far a walk, too much of an undertaking for you. 
You are not afraid of this? ” he continued, as 
he directed his eyes toward Bengalee, and 
seeing that, while he was speaking, she, too, 
had let her glance fall upon the cub, which 
was now pacing restlessly about their feet. 


WASHED ASHORE. 


243 


“ No,” she said, “I am not; yet what 
you said in the night was true. It is growing 
beyond control, and of course I know how 
treacherous and savage these animals are. It 
was a piece of girlish folly on my part to beg 
poor uncle to save it.” 

“ I scarcely know how we are to make 
away with it,” he replied. “ I have nothing 
but this; ” and he took from his pocket a little 
white-handled penknife which he had prob- 
ably bought for a shilling off a card when ex- 
posed in a London shop-window. “ I could 
hardly kill it with that. However, one thing 
is certain: it will die of starvation ere long 
on this island. It cannot live on fruit, as we 
can, nor catch birds, and there are no signs 
of animals, not even rats or mice, as far as I 
can see.” 

“ Oh, poor thing, what a dreadful death to 
die! ” the girl exclaimed, her pity awakened 
for a creature which had been more or less 
her pet for some weeks. 

Yet she hastened to ask if starvation did 
not make such animals even more fierce than 
usual, and if the risk to them both would not 
thereby be the more increased. Then, be- 


244 


THE SEAFARERS. 


fore he could reply, she suddenly exclaimed, 
as her glance fell on the sea: 

“ What is that out there? Surely — sure- 
ly — it is not a drowned man. Oh, not that! 
not that! not that!” 

Following the direction of that glance he 
saw something drifting about on the tranquil, 
almost rippleless waters over which by now 
the rays of the risen sun were glancing hori- 
zontally — something that, since it was end- 
on towards them and the island, was not 
easily to be distinguished, yet, all the same, 
was undoubtedly no drowned man nor human 
body alive or dead. 

At first he thought it might be a dead 
shark, his knowledge of the sea telling him 
that it was not a living one, since they never 
expose aught but the dorsal fin when swim- 
ming; then a second later he recognised what 
the object really was. 

“ No! ” he exclaimed, anxious to appease 
her terrors at once, knowing also to whom, 
above all others — to whose dead body — those 
terrors pointed. “ No, that is nobody, living 
or dead. Instead, it is one of our quarter 
boats washed out of the chocks when the 


WASHED ASHORE. 


245 

ship turned on her side, no doubt, and float- 
ing about ever since.” 

“ It is coming nearer!” Bella exclaimed, 
her eyes still on it and full of delight at hear- 
ing that in it there was at least no confirma- 
tion, of one awful fear. “ Do you not think 
so?” 

“ Undoubtedly it is coming nearer. It 
will strike the shore just there if the reef does 
not catch it,” and he pointed with sailor-like 
certainty to a spot close by. “ It will be a 
mercy if it does? ” 

“ Why? We could not escape from this 
place in that, could we? ” 

“ Hundreds of sailors have escaped death 
in smaller boats than that. Ay! and lived for 
many days, too, on an open and rough sea in 
such. But we need not think of escape only. 
If it comes ashore I can make a visit to the 
poor old Emperor and find out something, if 
not all, that I — that we — want to know. 
Also, though we might not put to sea in it, 
we may use it to get to some other island 
which is inhabited by, perhaps, white men, 
but anyhow by some one. It will be of the 
greatest assistance, especially as, since it 


THE SEAFARERS. 


246 

floats, it must be undamaged. I trust the 
oars, if not the sail, are in it.” 

And now, listening to his words/ Bella 
became as eager for the quarter boat to come 
ashore as her companion was, and together 
they went down to the spot he had indicated 
as that which the boat was likely to arrive at 
— a spot about sixty yards from where they 
were. 

As Bella walked by her preserver’s side she 
was wondering many things, wondering if he 
would indeed be able now to discover what 
the fate of the others in the Emperor had 
been and, above all, if by the aid of this boat he 
would be enabled to solve for her the question 
she hourly — momentarily — asked herself by 
day and night — the question whether there 
was for her any hope left of a life of happiness 
and bliss to be passed by her lover’s side, or 
whether the future could bring nothing now 
but a joyless, heart-broken existence. Also, 
she mused upon one other thing: What was 
he thinking of while, with his eyes never off 
the incoming boat, he meditated deeply, as, 
from his knit brows and fixed look, she felt 
sure he was doing? The thoughts, those that 


WASHED ASHORE. 


247 


actually were in his mind, he would undoubt- 
edly not have divulged, even though she had 
asked him to do so, since they were such as 
could only have caused her grief unspeakable; 
for he was thinking that, since this quarter- 
boat had been washed out of the chocks and 
off the deck into the sea, and had then floated 
about for forty-eight hours in the neighbour- 
hood previous to being directed by some sub- 
tle current to the island, so other things that 
were on that deck would be subject to the 
same conditions — the bodies of drowned 
men, the body of her lover. He knew that 
the sea and its currents and tides work in 
calm weather with as much regularity as the 
sun and the moon work in their rising and 
their setting, even, indeed, as the seasons 
themselves work, and he knew also that if Gil- 
bert’s body — which was close to where the 
quarter boat rested when the ship struck — 
had been washed into the sea at the same time 
as it, then it was most probable — nay, almost 
certain — that it, too, would come ashore at 
the same spot and perhaps almost at the same 
time. 

What horror — what a fresh horror — 


THE SEAFARERS. 


248 

would that thus be for this poor, devoted girl 
to experience! For in his own heart he never 
doubted for one moment that somewhere, 
close at hand, the body of Gilbert Bampfyld 
was floating about. 

The boat was coming very close to the 
shore now, so close that they could see that 
one oar was in it, but no more; also that 
there was nothing else, as well as that the 
rudder was not fixed in the braces. Yet that 
mattered little to Stephen Charke if he could 
only once get possession of the boat itself, 
since, with the use of one oar on such a glassy 
sheet of water as this ocean was now, he 
could easily enough propel and steer it. 

“ I am glad, thankful it is coming ashore,” 
he said. “ I had thought of swimming out 
to the ship only I dreaded the sharks. Little 
use as one’s life may be, I should scarcely 
care to lose mine by the jaws of those brutes.” 

And, though he did not see it, the girl by 
his side gave him a glance such as would per- 
haps have cheered his heart had he done so. 
Was not her own life also of little enough use? 
she asked herself as he spoke, to make her 
sympathize with his remark; would it not be 


WASHED ASHORE. 


249 


a broken and dejected one henceforth if that 
which she dreaded, which she had almost 
forced herself to feel sure must be the case, 
should be proved beyond all doubt before 
many more hours had passed? For every 
hope with which she had buoyed herself up 
was sinking in her breast as moment after mo- 
ment went by and the time grew longer and 
longer since the wreck had taken place. 

The boat touched the white, pebbly beach 
now, grating on it with a gentle scrape, and 
Stephen, who had gone close to the water’s 
edge to await its arrival, put out his hand and, 
seizing first the stern and then the painter, 
drew it a foot or two farther on shore. Then 
he got into it and, grasping the solitary oar 
which had remained in the boat simply be- 
cause the loom or handle had got caught be- 
neath the stern thwart, prepared to shove off 
in it. 

“ You will not mind,” he said, as he did so, 
“ being left alone for half an hour? This will 
not take me away from you for so long as 
when I go round the island;” while, in an- 
swer, she shook her head to indicate that she 
was not at all afraid of being left by herself. 


CHAPTER XXII. 


“ a sailor’s knife.” 

“ She is perfectly sound and water-tight,” 
he called back to her as, with the hand which 
was uninjured, he threw the oar over the 
boat’s stern and worked her out from the 
shore. “ If we want her to help us off to an- 
other island she will do it, if I can only find 
the second oar floating about somewhere.” 

Then he propelled her as swiftly as he 
could to where the Emperor of the Moon lay 
outside the rock, her keel and copper bottom 
gleaming in the bright morning sun. 

As he drew near to the ship he began to 
perceive how all hope must be abandoned of 
the likelihood that any one should still be 
alive and imprisoned in her. She had turned 
over even more than he had at first imagined 
after regarding her from the shore of the isl- 
and, so that almost was the keel level in a 

manner exactly the opposite from what sail- 
250 


A SAILOR’S KNIFE . 1 


251 


ors mean when they talk about a “ level keel.” 
It stuck up now, as far as it was out of water, 
like some sharp mountain ridge when re- 
garded by those who are in a valley beneath, 
forming an almost horizontal line; while be- 
neath the keel and above the water for half 
the length of the vessel was visible a portion 
of the outside of the main hold down to (or 
up from) her diagonal ribband lines. And 
here was a great gaping wound, a hole 
smashed into the side of the devoted ship 
large enough to have let the whole Indian 
Ocean pour in directly it was made, and al- 
though there might well be others which were 
not visible, sufficient to have filled and sunk 
forthwith the greatest vessel that was ever 
launched. The force of the impact was to 
be appreciated, too, by the manner in which 
her copper sheathing was forced into her and 
burst, so that where the blow had been struck 
by the jagged tooth of the rock the latter 
looked like a destroyed chevaux de frise , or, 
for a better comparison, a paper hoop 
through which an acrobat had passed. And 
in this burst and broken protection — as in 

other and less terrible circumstances it might 
17 


252 


THE SEAFARERS. 


have been (though naturally it had proved 
useless here) — the sheathing nails stuck out 
like brilliant gleaming yellow teeth, all broken 
and distorted. 

Charke brought the quarter boat along- 
side the upturned or inclined bottom, so that 
by looking through this gaping wound lie 
could peer into the now reversed deck and see 
that on what had once been the roof of it, 
but was now the floor, a mass of articles such 
as are usually stowed away in a ship’s lower 
depths lay — a mass composed of cables, old 
and new sails, as well as some stores, con- 
sisting of dozens of tinned meat-cases, un- 
opened, boxes of sardines, and so forth, and 
several old sea-chests and trunks — all lying, 
of course, helter-skelter, as they had been 
thrown together by the ship’s reversal. 

“ There are some things of use here,” 
Charke thought, “worth taking away;” 
whereupon he ran the painter through a 
small hole in the sheathing and tied it tightly, 
and then scrambled up the vessel’s inverted 
side until he was able to drop himself through 
the opening on to the deck, taking care that 
he tore neither his flesh nor his clothes in do- 


A SAILOR’S KNIFE.’ 


253 


in g so. Being there, he selected a small sail 
which he found — it was indeed a boat sail, and 
with its gear of mast and tackle attached — 
and passing it through the orifice dropped it 
carefully into the boat, while next he took a 
few of the tins of provisions and dropped them 
into her too; and also he found something 
which would be to him, in the utterly unpro- 
vided condition in which Bella and he had 
escaped to the island, of the greatest service. 
This was a long clasp knife in its leather 
sheath, such as sailors strap to their sides, and 
new and in good condition, so that he did not 
doubt that the last seaman who had been 
sent below to this deck had dropped it there 
unknowingly, and was able to picture to him- 
self the man’s annoyance, probably expressed 
aloud with a good deal of vehemence and 
strong language later on, over his loss. 

This done, and the doing of it all had not 
taken long, he prepared to leave the disor- 
dered hold, when he remembered that there 
was one thing he wanted, namely, some cable. 
“ The tiger has to die at once! ” he muttered 
to himself. “ With a piece of stout rope and 
this knife, which would slay anything from 


254 


THE SEAFARERS. 


an elephant downward, it should not be dif- 
ficult of accomplishment.” 

Then, having selected two or three pieces 
of cable of different strands, he got out 
through the hole again and into the boat. 

It is almost needless to write down that 
he found no sign of human life as he rowed 
about and around the wrecked Emperor of 
the Moon for some moments afterwards, 
or to add that he had never expected to 
find any. He was a sailor, accustomed to 
disaster at sea, and full, also, of much ac- 
quired knowledge pertaining to many other 
calamities which it had never been his lot 
to experience heretofore; therefore he knew, 
felt sure, and would have staked his life upon 
the certainty of his convictions, that of all 
who had been in that doomed ship an hour 
before she struck none except Bella Waldron 
and himself were now alive. Those who had 
been below in the cabins or saloon, those also 
who were in forecastle or galley, had met — 
must have met — not only with their deaths, 
but their graves at the same time; while as 
for the unhappy and blind young officer who 
had caused him so much heartache by win- 


A SAILOR'S KNIFE.’ 


255 


ning the woman whom he himself loved fond- 
ly, and whom he had once hoped to win — 
why, it was impossible that he should still be 
alive! If he had been washed ashore it could 
be only as a corpse, and it was most improb- 
able that even that should have happened. In 
truth, he believed that, with all the others, he 
had been carried below by the overturning of 
the ship and then pinned down, buried be- 
neath the mass of the fabric; otherwise, since 
the boat had floated ashore, so too would he 
have done by now. 

“ The woman I had hoped to win!” he 
repeated softly to himself as still he sculled 
the quarter boat round and round, peering 
down into the dark blue depths as far as he 
could penetrate; endeavouring also to per- 
ceive some sign or memorial — even so much 
as a cap or straw hat — of one of those poor 
drowned sailors imprisoned below; “the wom- 
an I had hoped to win! ” and as the phrase 
rose to his mind, though not to his lips, he re- 
called also how he had cherished the thought 
of the length of voyage that had lain before 
her ere she could join her lover in India; 
how, too, he had pondered on half a hundred 


256 


THE SEAFARERS. 


things which might happen ere the old Em- 
peror should be anchored in Bombay har- 
bour. Almost, now, those meditations 
seemed to have been prophetic, for what had 
not happened? The girl’s lover was gone, 
removed by death, and she had none other in 
the world on whom to lean but himself, and, 
what was more, she spoke kindly to him, pit- 
ied him, he could well perceive; there was 
something between them now, a deep sym- 
pathy, a reliance on each other in their mis- 
fortunes, which had never existed before. 

“The woman I had hoped to win! ” Well! 
— he scarce dared whisper the thought to 
his longing heart, yet it was there — the 
thought, the hope that in days to come, in 
after months — perhaps years — when her grief 
for Gilbert Bampfyld was mellowed and soft- 
ened by time, when she knew him better and 
should fully recognise how profound his ad- 
oration for her was, he might still win her! 
She could not, young as she was and with all 
the years of a long life before her, sorrow for- 
ever — sorrow for a memory that would at last 
be nothing but a shadow. 

“ I will win her! ” he said aloud to him- 


A SAILOR’S KNIFE. 1 


257 


self now, as he worked the boat ashore; “ I 
am resolved I will.” The one obstacle in his 
path was removed; the brave gallant young 
officer was gone, brushed aside by fate. He 
would win her yet! 

He stepped ashore now to where she was 
standing watching him, and almost it seemed, 
if his recent thoughts had not tinged with a 
roseate hue his present fancies, that there was 
a look of greeting and of welcome in her eyes 
to him even as she saw that he had come back 
at the conclusion of so small an absence as his 
had been. Was she beginning even now — 
now that she had none other in the world to 
watch for — to desire to have him always near 
her? Ah! if that were indeed so! Then — 
then — he might indeed win her at last. 

“ You found,” she asked, speaking low, 
and in those sad tones which had come into 
her voice of late, and since disaster had fallen 
heavily on them, “ you found no sign of any 
others having been saved? ” 

“ No,” he said, also softly. “ No, there 
are no signs of that. Miss Waldron, I am 
neither cruel nor hard of heart, but — but — oh, 
how can I say it! — it is useless to hope.” 


258 


THE SEAFARERS. 


“ Useless? Ah! well, I suppose it is. 
Must be! And, God help me, must also be 
borne!” Then she turned away from him, 
partly with the desire to hide the tears which 
had risen to her eyes from being seen by him, 
and went back to the shade of the trees under 
which she had been sitting until she saw the 
quarter boat returning with him in it. And 
he followed her, carrying the cable which he 
had brought away from the ship, the knife 
which he had found being in his pocket, and 
the sail with its gear left in the boat. The sun 
was terribly fierce now, so fierce that to be 
beneath its rays for only a few moments was 
to risk sunstroke as well as to be burnt red, as 
he had long since been, and she also since her 
exposure on the island; wherefore, of course, 
he could not attempt the projected tour of the 
place until it once more sank low in the west. 
There was consequently nothing to do now 
but to sit idly gazing out to sea watching for 
signs of any ships which might pass near 
enough to observe them when they should 
have erected signals. 

“ After the tour around the island,” he 
said to her, as he sat by her side beneath the 


A SAILOR’S KNIFE.’ 


259 


palm trees and occupied his time in plaiting a 
quantity of the long, thick grass which grew 
at their feet into something that should serve 
for hats, or at least coverings for their heads, 
“ after the tour, when we have had the last 
sad satisfaction of knowing that there can be 
none who have escaped, you will not object to 
my endeavouring to arrange for our being 
taken off? The Mozambique Channel is full 
of shipping on its way to India during the 
time of the south-west monsoon. You will 
let me make signals, will you not? ” 

“ I am in your hands,” she replied, her 
eyes on him. “ You must do all that you 
think best. Ah, Mr. Charke! you do not 
know how grateful I am to you.” 

“ Never say that. Not a word. I knew, I 
thought, I could save one besides myself; and 
naturally,” he went on simply, “ I saved you.” 

Then both sat on, musing and meditating 
in silence. 

“ Here comes the tiger,” he said now, 
seeing the creature stalking toward them in 
the lithe, treacherous manner peculiar to its 
race. “ I imagine it has been endeavouring to 
find food. I brought off some tinned things 


26 o 


THE SEAFARERS. 


from the shipT Yet, cruel as it seems to be, it 
is not advisable, I think, to give it anything in 
the shape of flesh. Meanwhile, if it will only 
go to sleep, we ought to secure it; ” and as he 
spoke he took up one of the pieces of cable 
and commenced tying what is known to sail- 
ors as a double diamond knot; but previously 
he had fastened the other end securely round 
one of the palm trees that grew close by him. 

“ There will be an advantage in this,” he 
said, “ namely, that the more it pulls against 
it the tighter will come the loop, so that its 
intelligence will prevent it from straining at 
the rope and strangling itself.” 

“Poor wretch!” Bella exclaimed, “how 
gaunt and lean it is growing! I recognise 
that it cannot be kept alive or even taken off 
with us when we are found here, yet — yet — I 
am sorry for it.” 

“ Yes,” he answered, “ I understand that, 
but it has to be done — must be done — is im- 
perative. In the state it is now from hunger, 
and also owing to its increasing strength, our 
lives are no longer safe with it, and certainly 
not with it at large; while, if one of us were 
to scratch our hands, or even get the slightest 


A SAILOR'S KNIFE.’ 


261 


wound, and the creature smelt the blood, 
which it would undoubtedly do — well, the re- 
sult might be terrible. Now, see, it is going 
to sleep, appears exhausted. I must drop the 
loop over its head.” 

“ No,” she answered, “ let me do that. It 
is still very docile with me; ” while as she 
spoke she took the loop from his hand and, 
patting the creature’s head — whereon it raised 
it as a dog will raise its head when stroked by 
a loved hand — dropped it down until the rope 
was round its neck, though she did not do so 
without muttering some words of regret as 
to what she deemed her treachery. 

“ It is no treachery,” he said; “ no more 
treacherous, indeed, than to tie up a mastiff in 
its kennel. And even though it were, it 
would not matter. These creatures are them- 
selves the incarnation of treachery. However, 
the main point is that it is now secure. It is 
not yet strong enough to burst this rope.” 

Such was the case, yet it was strange that 
to so acute a mind as Charke’s there had 
not occurred the idea that it would not take 
a tiger cub very long to gnaw a ship’s rope 
through if it desired its release. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 


“the tiger did that!” 

When the sun began to drop toward 
where Africa lay, afar off and invisible, and 
when, because of the dense foliage which 
crowned the slopes of the island that rose be- 
hind them, that portion where they were was 
rapidly becoming shaded from its burning 
rays, Stephen Charke said that the time had 
come for him to think of making his tour of 
the place, or, at least, of accomplishing a part 
of it. The air, it is true, still resembled that 
which one feels when they have approached 
too near to a furnace, or, for a further simile, 
have descended into the engine-room of a 
steamer, yet now there would be no danger 
of sunstroke, and the expedition, such as it 
was, might very well be undertaken. 

“ My idea is,” Charke said, “ to begin at 
once — this afternoon — by starting to the left 

and going on along the shore until I am near- 
262 


THE TIGER DID THAT!” 


263 


ly opposite this place on the other side of the 
island. Then I will come back here, crossing 
it, and to-morrow do the same with the other 
side. That way there will not be much left 
unexplored by to-morrow evening. What 
do you think? ” 

“ I think,” Bella answered impulsively, 
“ that you are the most unselfish, heroic man 
I ever knew. Ah, Mr. Charke! ” she contin- 
ued, “ I know very well why you are doing 
this, why you are going to make this journey 
round the island. It is to satisfy me — it is for 
my sake. If you were alone here you would 
never do it, but occupy yourself only on the 
thoughts of how to get away. And ” 

“ No,” he said. “ No. Had I been the 
only person who got ashore from that wreck 
I should as a sailor, as a comrade of the others, 
have deemed it my duty to make a thorough 
search of the island ere I took steps to quit it. 
I shall have, as the survivor of the Emperor of 
the Moon, to make a report ” 

“ I understand,” she said quietly. “T un- 
derstand. But nothing that you can say will 
make me feel my obligations to you any the 
less.” 


264 


THE SEAFARERS. 


For Bella Waldron knew, as well as 
Stephen Charke himself knew, that what she 
had just said was the absolute fact: knew that 
he was going to undertake this fresh toil — for 
toil it was after all he had gone through, after 
his bruises and bufferings with the waves, 
and in this terrible torrid-zone heat — for her 
and on her account alone. Going to under- 
take it with the desire of easing her heart, and 
of preventing her in after years from being 
able to reproach herself with having left the 
spot while any chance remained of there be- 
ing one of those who were dear to her upon it. 

Also, she was perfectly aware that he did 
not for one moment believe — alas! how could 
he, a trained, intelligent seaman, believe — 
that there was any other soul left alive out of 
all those who had been in the ill-fated vessel 
when she struck on the rock. And, being 
thus unable to believe, could she regard him 
as aught else than that which a moment be- 
fore she had termed him — “ a most unselfish, 
heroic man? ” 

Before he left her he asked if she would 
not partake of some of the tinned meats or 
sardines which he had managed to obtain 


THE TIGER DID THAT ! 


265 


from the upturned hold; but as the girl re- 
plied that it was far too hot to eat anything 
but the wild fruit growing in such profusion 
all around, and also that she was not hungry, 
he decided that he would not open one of the 
tins for himself. He, too, could do very well 
on what there was to their hands for the 
trouble of gathering, since here, in this tropi- 
cal, steaming atmosphere, eating seemed 
scarcely a necessity of life, and if it were, then 
those glorious bananas whose golden and 
crimson hues merged so superbly into each 
other were amply sufficient. But also he 
had another reason for not opening the pre- 
served meat: the odour of it would — might 
— arouse the cub’s desires, and, once aroused, 
they would possibly stir the animal almost to 
frenzy if ungratified. 

He rose now and prepared to set out, there 
being still two full hours of daylight left; two 
full hours ere the sun would be gone and the 
swift night fall at once upon all around — the 
outcome of a dusky veil which the sun ap- 
pears to fling behind it as it departs, and out 
of which emerges black obscurity, lit only by 
the burning, silvery constellations! But ere 


2 66 


THE SEAFARERS. 


he went he asked her if she feared to be left 
alone for so long. 

“ No,” she replied. “ No. Why should I? 
What is there to hurt me here? ” 

“ There may be people on the island, all 
the same,” he replied, “ though they have not 
yet discovered our presence — though I do not 
think it likely.” 

“ Nor do I. If there were, they would by 
now, in two days, have discovered that ” — and 
she pointed toward the wreck — “ and have 
come down to it. We are alone,” she con- 
cluded, with a sigh. “ There is no one else 
here but you and I ; ” and still again she 
sighed. 

“ Yes,” he answered, understanding all 
that her words meant, all the heart-broken- 
ness that they expressed. “ Yes, we are 
alone. There are no others.” After which 
he left her, saying that by dark, or very short- 
ly afterward, he would be back again. 

When he had departed, looking round 
once to wave his hand ere a bend of the shore 
hid him from her view (she noticed that, true 
to his sailor's instinct, he went down to the 
boat and inspected it, and then drew it up a 


THE TIGER DID THAT! 


267 


little more on the white, pebbled beach and 
made the painter more secure), she went first 
to the rivulet and cooled her face and hands 
and feet in it and made some attempt at ar- 
ranging her hair, using the stream as a mirror. 
Yet it was little enough that she could do in 
the way of a toilet, since she had nothing that 
could serve either as a comb or soap or towel. 
When, feeling refreshed, nevertheless, by this 
attempt, she returned to where she had been 
sitting and gazed out seaward, meditating 
deeply. 

“ What an end,” she murmured as she did 
so, and while from her eyes the tears flowed 
freely now — the more so because there was 
none to observe them — “ what an end to all! 
Gilbert, who was to have been my husband, 
dead! Gilbert, whom I so loved with my 
whole heart and soul, dead and lying be- 
neath that ship! Oh, Gilbert, Gilbert, Gil- 
bert, my love, come back to me! And my 
poor uncle and aunt, too — oh, God, what a 
disaster! What a disaster! ” 

And now she wept piteously, so piteously 
that, if that other man — he who had risked his 

own chances to save her as well as himself — 
18 


268 


THE SEAFARERS. 


could have seen her, the sight would have 
gone far to break his strong heart. 

That other man! Ay, that other man! 
And her thoughts turned to him, too; al- 
most unconsciously she found herself think- 
ing of him, speculating on what his future 
would be. 

“ He will never marry! ” she murmured, 
“ I know it — feel sure of it. It would be the 
idlest affectation to ignore his sentiments for 
me. Yet — yet — how sad, how mournful a 
life must his consequently be! No home for 
him to go to, no wife to welcome him; none 
to make him happy. Poor Mr. Charke — 
poor Stephen! Our lots will be similar. We 
must be friends — always friends! ” 

Meanwhile, he was making his way along 
the beach, which was still shaded from the sun, 
it becoming, indeed, more and more so as he 
progressed further round the island away 
from the west. And every step he took 
served only to confirm him in what he had be- 
lieved — known — from the first, the unlikeli- 
hood of there being any other person saved 
from the wreck. 

“ Surely,” he muttered to himself, “ if he 


THE TIGER DID THAT! 


269 

should have drifted ashore, it would have 
been here. The current sets this way, also 
the monsoon blows toward this island; living 
or dead, he would have come to this neigh- 
bourhood if he had come at all. The tiger 

did that, and doubtless ” 

He paused at those words, “ The tiger 
did that,” and for a moment it seemed to 
him that his heart stood still. “ The tiger 
did that! ” Ay — but did it! Was he wrong 
in his surmise, wrong in his deduction? Did 
the cub land here or hereabouts? Reflect- 
ing, recalling the night before, the early dawn 
when Bella shrieked to him and awoke him 
from a half slumber into which he had fallen, 
he recollected that the beast had sprung forth 
from the copse of orange and lemon trees 
that was to the right of the little spot they 
had been occupying, the spot where he had 
waded ashore with the girl in his arms, and 
where, after carrying her up far above the 
water-line, he had dropped senseless. It had 
sprung at them from the right side, was com- 
ing from the right, and it was not to be be- 
lieved — was, indeed, beyond all belief — that 
it could previously have passed across where 


270 


THE SEAFARERS. 


they were from the other side without hav- 
ing been noticed by one of them, especially 
by Bella, who was wide awake; was coming 
from the right — had doubtless, therefore, got 
ashore, been cast ashore to the right — and 
he was seeking for signs, had set out to the 
left! Had he, therefore, chosen the most 
unlikely place in which, if by the most remote 
chance any human being should have been 
washed ashore, to discover them? 

“ Shall I go back? ” he mused, “ begin 
again on the other side? Shall I? ” Yet as 
he meditated he reflected that there would be 
little use in doing so; certainly little use in 
doing so to-day. An hour had now passed, 
or nearly so, since he quitted Bella; the sun, 
he knew, since he could no longer see it, was 
sinking fast; over the whole of the rich, lux- 
urious vegetation that stretched inland there 
was now the golden hue, the amber light that 
in the tropics follows after the dazzling, blind- 
ing, molten brilliancy of the noontide direct- 
ly the sun is no longer vertically above the 
globe. Also there were the odours of the 
coming night all about him — odours of that 
period of the declining day when from every 


THE TIGER DID THAT! 


271 


fruit and flower that has drooped through the 
hottest hours of the earlier portion of it ex- 
udes the luscious, sickly scent that travellers 
know so well. 

“ No,” he said to himself. “ No. It 
would be little use to turn back now — to begin 
again to-night! And — and — ” he murmured, 
thinking deeply as he did so, “ even though he 
had been cast ashore he could not now be 
alive. Blind, unable to see his way, to find 
any of all the fruit that grows here in such 
profusion, poor Bampfyld would succumb to 
starvation even if the life had not been beaten 
out of him by the waves.” 

It was of Gilbert Bampfyld alone that he 
thought, of him alone about whom he specu- 
lated, since of all others who had been in the 
Emperor of the Moon he was the only one 
whose body could by any possibility have 
come ashore. 

They — those others — Pooley and his wife 
— were in the submerged cabin; no power on 
earth could have got them out of it. The men 
in the galley and the forecastle were in as 
equally bad a plight; nothing could have 
saved them, have even released their bodies. 


272 


THE SEAFARERS. 


But as he thought of Gilbert Bampfyld, so 
he felt sure that he also must have perished, 
even though he was not thus below deck as 
those others had been. Still musing on all 
this, but with one other image ever present to 
his mind — the image of the woman he loved, 
dishevelled and stormbeaten, but always beau- 
tiful — the woman of whom now he began to 
dream once more, to dream of winning for his 
own in some distant day — he went on along 
the beach, his eyes glancing everywhere 
around and near him: into the wild, tangled 
vegetation; along the channels of the rivu- 
let’s courses; fixed on the beach. 

Suddenly he stopped, his heart quivering 
again, beating fast. 

At his feet there lay a sailor’s rough jacket 
with, a little further off, a cap — a common 
blue flannel thing such as the mercantile sail- 
or buys for a few pence at a Ratcliffe High- 
way slop-shop. Stopped, gazing at them, not 
with that agitation which the greatest ro- 
mancer who ever lived has depicted as clutch- 
ing at Crusoe’s heart when he saw the foot- 
mark, but instead with a feeling of astonish- 
ment, yet a feeling of astonishment which he 


THE TIGER DID THAT! 


told himself he — a sailor — ought not to ex- 
perience. 

“ Do not all wrecked vessels,” he mut- 
tered, “ send forth around them countless arti- 
cles of debris, countless portions of the raffle 
that encumbers their decks? What more like- 
ly than that a sailor’s jacket and a cap should 
have floated ashore ! ” 

Then he stooped and, feeling them, found 
they were thoroughly dry; so that they must 
have been ashore for some hours at least, 
since even the fierce sun of the now declining 
day could not have dried them in less time, all 
soaked with water as they had been. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 
beaten! defeated! 

“ No,” he said to Bella some time later, 
and when he had returned to her, “ no other 
signs than these — nothing; ” while as he 
spoke he pointed to the jacket and cap which 
lay at his feet. He had brought them with 
him after the discovery, thinking that perhaps 
they might be useful when the time came for 
them to set out in the quarter boat, as he 
fully imagined they would have to do, thereby 
to reach some other island. 

“Yet,” she whispered, “if they, if this 
animal, too indicating Bengalee, who now, 
what with its being made prisoner by the rope 
and also by its long fasting, displayed a hor- 
rible state of nervous agitation, a state which 
frightened Bella and rendered even Stephen 
very uneasy — “ if they could be thrown 
ashore, why not others. Mr. Charke, do you 

think there is any hope? ” 

274 


BEATEN ! DEFEATED ! 


275 


“ I cannot buoy you up by saying that I 
do think so,” he answered. “ Yet be assured 
of one thing: you will know soon now. To- 
morrow, at the first sign of dawn I set out 
to accomplish the inspection of the other half 
of the island. It is smaller even than I 
thought; it will not take long.” 

And at daybreak he roused himself to 
carry out his undertaking, though even as he 
rose from the warm, soft sand on which he had 
lain he knew, felt sure, that he was going on a 
bootless task. Again and again he had told 
himself through the night that even though 
Gilbert Bampfyld’s body had reached the isl- 
and, it had never done so with life in it, yet he 
would make sure for her sake and for his. 

“ Heaven bless you! ” she exclaimed, from 
where she also rose as she saw him do so, and 
came toward him. “ Heaven bless you! You 
spare yourself no trouble nor fatigue on my 
account.” 

“ It is best,” he answered, though scarcely 
knowing what reply to make, “ it is best that 
there should be no chance lost. If — if — ” 
then he held out his hand to her, as he had not 
done before, and at once after she had taken 


2 y6 


THE SEAFARERS. 


it set out upon the remaining portion of his 
search. And for some reason which he per- 
haps could not have explained to him- 
self he cast no last look back at her in the 
swift-coming daylight — gave no wave of 
farewell, as he had done on the previous after- 
noon. 

That daylight brought a little breeze with 
it which was cool and soft as it came off the 
ocean, that for some hours had been free from 
the burning rays of the sun, and Charke made 
his way along the beach now, glancing, as he 
had done during his search of yesterday, 
everywhere — into every spot wherein, if any 
one, anything, had come ashore, it would 
probably have been cast. But as it had been 
when he proceeded toward the left or south, 
so was it now as he went toward the right or 
north end of the island. He found nothing, 
not even this time a rag of clothing nor a spar 
from the ship. He observed, however, 
amongst other things of which his vigilant 
eyes took notice, that here the formation of 
the island was considerably different from 
what it had been on the southern side. There, 
as he made his way back inland to Bella, cut- 


BEATEN ! DEFEATED ! 


2 77 

ting across from the eastern to the western 
shore, he had found the glades and groves 
almost flat, except for small knolls and little 
eminences, on which, as everywhere else, there 
grew the long deep-green grass, the cocoa 
trees and tamarinds, and the flowering shrubs 
and bushes; but here, upon the. side he was 
now following, all was different. Inland he 
could perceive that the surface rose until it 
developed into quite high hills, and that those 
hills, forming into spurs as they ran down to 
the water’s edge, created a number of little 
bays or coves, some of them being scarcely 
more than fifty yards in breadth. Also he 
perceived that on high where the crests or 
summits of these spurs were their sides were 
abrupt declivities, resembling often the sheer 
sides of cliffs, instead of sloping gradually 
and being covered by the deep emerald vel- 
vety grass. And they were as white as cliffs, 
too — as those of Dover — and sometimes as 
precipitous. Huge masses of fallen, crum- 
bling rock lay tumbled together at their base 
and in the tiny valleys which they formed be- 
tween them, giving thereby sure signs either 
of some convulsion which had at one time or 


278 


THE SEAFARERS. 


another taken place or of their lack of solid- 
ity and insecure composition. 

“ I shall have,” Charke thought, “ a 
mountainous, up-and-down kind of return 
journey if I go back to her inland; yet it will 
cut off a good deal of the way — make it easier 
for me.” 

He found as he progressed, however, that 
soon, if he wished to continue his inspection 
of the whole of the coast, he would, in any cir- 
cumstances, have to pursue his walk more or 
less inland; since now he could see, by looking 
ahead, that the spurs ran quite out into the 
sea, so that they hid each little bay from its 
neighbour on either side of it. Consequent- 
ly, if he wished to inspect the space between 
each, he would have to mount to their tops 
and thus pass down into the recesses that they 
formed. At present, however, there was no 
necessity for him to do this. Still looking 
ahead, he saw that there were three more bays 
or coves, which he could reach by walking 
between the feet of the spurs and the water, 
the former stopping some yards short of the 
gentle surf which the morning breeze was 
raising. 


BEATEN ! DEFEATED ! 


279 


“ Three, ” he said; “three. This one 
where I am now the first, then two more. 
And after that I must ascend and gaze down. 
There will be no getting further along the 
beach.’ , 

So he entered the first cove, finding it as 
desolate and bare as the others into which he 
had glanced in his journey; bare of every- 
thing, and with its white beach as void of all 
other objects than its own stones as though 
it had that morning been swept clean and 
clear. The second was the same, except that 
here upon its beach there lay the long iron 
shank of an anchor with one arm and fluke 
upon it, the other gone — an anchor that he 
knew at a glance had never been made in 
recent days, that by its quaint form must be 
some centuries old. And even as he con- 
tinued his journey he wondered how it had 
come there, and if in long-forgotten and un- 
numbered years some toilers of the sea had 
been flung ashore at this spot, and whether 
this was all that had been left by Time to hint 
at the story. 

Then he entered the third and last bay or 
cove which remained passable by the shore- 


28 o 


THE SEAFARERS. 


way, the last which he would be able to in- 
spect until he ascended to the cliffs above. 

As he did so he started — knew, felt, that 
beneath his bronze and sunburn he had turned 
white — recognised that he was trembling with 
a faint, nervous tremor. This cove to which 
he had penetrated was different from the pre- 
vious ones; it ran back between the two spurs 
which formed its walls until it merged into the 
wooded, grassy declivity that sloped down 
from above, while at the foot of that decliv- 
ity was more grass, forming a little carpeted 
ravine, with, growing on it, some of the isl- 
and trees — orange trees, lemon trees, even 
bananas. And on the grass there lay a man! 
Dead or asleep? 

A man fair-haired, clad in the white drill 
suit with brass buttons — they glistened now in 
the rays of the rising sun — the white tropical 
uniform of the Royal Navy — a man who was 
Gilbert Bampfyld. 

Stephen’s heart was like ice within his 
breast. All was lost now, every hope gone that 
of late he had once again begun to cherish! 
Yet he advanced to where that man lay and 
approaching noiselessly, looked down on him. 


BEATEN! DEFEATED! 


281 

Looked down and recognised that there was 
no sign of death or coming death; that he was 
sleeping peacefully and calmly; that he was 
rescued for the second time within the last 
month from a sudden doom. 

Also he perceived something else: ob- 
served that this man had recovered his sight. 
This he could not doubt. Near Bampfyld 
was some fruit which he must have gath- 
ered recently; also he had pulled down some 
of the branches of the trees which grew close 
by and had shedded them of their leaves, upon 
which he was now lying, they making an 
easier pallet than the grass alone would have 
done, while Charke perceived also that he 
had been fashioning a sturdy branch of the 
tamarind into a stout stick. Doubtless he 
had recovered his sight through the shock of 
his immersion when the ship heeled over. 

Strong, determined, masterful as Stephen 
Charke had been all through the disasters 
which had overwhelmed the Emperor of the 
Moon; brave and stalwart as he had shown 
himself when, with none other left to com- 
mand the doomed ship but himself, he had 
helped to furl and unfurl sails, to steer like 


282 


THE SEAFARERS. 


any ordinary seaman at the wheel, and to en- 
deavour manfully to hold her up and ward 
off instant destruction, he was beaten now. 
Beaten! defeated! Also he felt suddenly 
feeble, so feeble that he was forced to sit 
down by the saved man’s side, doing this so 
quietly that the other did not waken. 

Beaten! defeated! Ay! and with nothing 
left of prospect in the future, nor ever any 
hope. Nothing! Nothing! Nothing! 
What had he hoped? he found himself ask- 
ing, what, in these last few days? What 
dreamed of? A home, a wife — perhaps in the 
future children waiting for his return, run- 
ning to meet him and to beg for stories of the 
sea, of tempests surmounted, dangers past. 
Now there would never be any home, nor 
wife, nor children! Nothing! He had loved 
one woman fondly, madly — the one woman in 
all the world to him. Until ten minutes ago 
he had believed that some day he would win 
her, and now it was never to be. His home 
would be the miserable lodging which the 
sailor ashore inhabits, his existence a long 
series of toiling across the seas in any ship 
wherein he could find employment — first one, 


BEATEN! DEFEATED! 


283 


then the other — for poor wages and without 
one gleam of sunshine to cheer him. What 
a life! 

And — and — it had seemed only an hour 
ago that all was likely to be so different. She, 
Bella Waldron, his love — no, not his! — never 
his now! — had been drawn toward him, re- 
lied on him, trusted in him, but henceforth she 
would need him no more. This other had 
come back, would come back into her life 
again, and he # would go out of it forever. God, 
it was hard! 

His hand, as he lifted it in his agony and 
left it fall again, struck against something solid 
in his pocket; thrusting it into the pocket he 
felt the sailor’s knife there which he had found 
in the hold of the ship, and drew it forth, re- 
garding it. It was a good knife, he found him- 
self reflecting, a good knife. The man who 
owned it had kept it in excellent order, too — 
sharp and keen. How he must have railed 
at losing it! And he, Stephen, had found it! 
A good knife — long and stout-bladed, well- 
pointed — a knife that would sever the stout- 
est cable, or — ! Men had been slain with 
worse weapons than this; a blow from it over 
19 


284 


THE SEAFARERS. 


the heart, under the left shoulder, and struck 
downward — yes, such blows must be struck 
downward or otherwise they might fail! — and 
a life could easily be taken. Easily. In a 
moment. 

It was a good knife, he reflected again. 
As he opened it and ran his finger along its 
tapering blade, and observed the thick, solid 
back which that blade possessed, he could not 
but acknowledge this. The man who had 
owned it and lost it had paid mftney for that 
knife. This was no slop-shop thing bought of 
a thievish Whitechapel or Houndsditch Jew 
who preyed on poor seamen. A good knife! 

He turned his head and looked at Gilbert 
Bampfyld lying there, still sleeping so calmly 
and peacefully — looked at the man whom he 
had come out to seek for, and — had found! 
Found as he had never expected to do, never 
believed it possible he should do. 

Looked at him, recognising all that his 
being there meant, all that this third human 
existence on this island, where formerly there 
had been but two persons, meant to him; the 
ruin that it cast upon his hopes. And again 
he glanced at the knife, holding it by the tip, 


BEATEN! DEFEATED! 


285 


weighing it, balancing it. It was a good 
knife, one that would strike hard and sure! 

And as he so thought he rose from his 
seat, went down to where the surf was beating 
violently now upon the beach, and flung the 
thing far off into the sea. 

Then he returned to the sleeping man, 
and kneeling by his side shook his arm gen- 
tly, saying: “ Come, Lieutenant Bampfyld! 
Come! Wake up — rouse yourself! ” 


CHAPTER XXV. 


SAVED ! 

“ I have loved my last, 

And that love was my first.” 

“ Great Heavens! ” exclaimed Gilbert as 
beneath that light touch he awoke and saw 
Stephen Charke by his side, “is it a dream! 
You — you here? Saved? Thank God for all 
His mercies. I thought all were lost but me.” 

Then suddenly, even as he rose to his feet 
— limping on one of them, Charke noticed, 
and grasping the tamarind cudgel he had cut 
himself, as though for support — he cried, lift- 
ing his other hand to his eyes: “ But Bella. 
Oh, Bella! my darling. Are,” he cried 
hoarsely, “ any others saved besides yourself? 
Speak! Put me out of my misery, one way or 
the other.” 

He saw — he must have seen — the answer 
in Stephen Charke’s eyes, for now he fell down 

on the leaves and grass at his feet and clasped 
286 


SAVED r 


287 


his hands as though thanking Heaven fer- 
vently for its mercies. But he could not 
himself speak yet, nor for some moments, or 
only spoke to once more mutter incoherent 
words of thanksgiving for this last crowning 
mercy. 

“ Yes,” Charke said, and it seemed to him- 
self as though his voice was tuneless, dead, 
and that it came from him with difficulty. 
“ Yes, she is saved — is safe. And she hopes 
always to see you again.” 

“ But how — how? For Heaven’s sake tell 
me that! She was in the cabin — surely she 
was in the cabin. I left her there when I 
struggled to the wheel. How was she 
saved? ” 

“ I,” said Charke, “ was enabled to help 
her. We got ashore together.” 

“ To help her! ” Gilbert said, looking into 
his eyes. “ To help her! It was more than 
that, I know. I am a sailor as well as you — 
such help is no light thing. Should you not 
rather say you risked your life for hers? You 
could have done it in no other way.” 

“ No,” Charke said, “ I risked nothing. It 
was nothing. Any one could have done it.” 


288 


THE SEAFARERS. 


Again the other looked at him, knowing, 
feeling sure, that the man before him was re- 
fusing to take any credit for what he had 
done; then he said: 

“ Where is she? Can I see her at once — 
now? Soon? ” 

“ She is not far. Within two miles from 
here. Awaits, hopes for your coming.” 

“Two miles! Heaven help me! I can 
scarcely crawl. Two miles, and I think my 
ankle is sprained.” 

“ She can come to you,” Charke replied, 
and the deadness, the lack of tone in his voice, 
the lifelessness of it, was apparent to the lis- 
tener now as well as to himself. “ I can 
fetch her.” 

“ Do! Do! At once, I beseech you. 
Oh! to see her, to see my girl again. Yet 
still I do not understand. How could she 
hope to ever see me in life again, how await 
my coming? She could not dream, not dare 
to dream, that I might be saved.” 

“ She would not believe anything else. 
For myself,” Charke went on, scorning to say 
that which was not the case, “ I did not be- 
lieve you could be saved. It seems to me 


SAVED ! 


289 


now, as you stand before me, that a miracle 
must have been worked on your behalf. And 
I told her so, mincing no matters. I told 
her you must be dead. But she would not 
believe. Bade, besought me to search this 
island, though, to be honest, I considered it 
useless to do so. Yesterday I took the other 
side; to-day this. And she was right. I — 
have found you.” 

His tone was not aggressive, crisp and in- 
cisive though his words might be; yet there 
was something in the former, and perhaps 
the latter, which told Gilbert Bampfyld that 
the search he spoke of had been one of chival- 
rous obedience to a helpless woman’s request, 
and not one made at his own desire. And 
he remembered how Bella had told him 
that this man had loved her once and had 
hoped for her love in return. Well, no mat- 
ter. He had saved her at what must have 
been peril to his own life; he could not cavil 
at, feel hurt at, the coldness of his speech. 

“ What you have done,” he said, “ is more 
than words can repay; and even though 
they were sufficient, now is not the time for 
them. Mr. Charke, can you bring her to me?” 


290 


THE SEAFARERS. 


“ I will go at once. But — but — she will 
undoubtedly be anxious, excited to know 
something of how you were saved. As we 
return to you she will desire to be told all; 
will be impatient to hear. What shall I tell 
her over and above the great news of all, that 
you are restored to her? ” 

“ There is not much to tell. As I was 
swept over the ship’s side my hand touched 
the port quarter boat which was being thrown 

out at the moment ” 

“ Ah! It has come ashore, too.” 

“ And naturally I clutched at it. Would 
not let go, held on like grim death, knowing 
that my only chance was in it. And, do you 
know, I found that I could see again! Dis- 
tinctly, or almost so. I could see the waves, 
the surf ahead; knew that some shore or 
coast was near. But, even as I recognised 
this, wondering, too, why at the moment 
when I was doomed to be drowned I should 
have this gift accorded me, I lost my hold 
on the boat and, a moment later, was thrown 
ashore — at least touched bottom. And — 
and — it was a hard fight; I never thought to 
win through it. Each recoil of the waves 


SAVED ! 


291 


tore me back again, only to find myself thrown 
forward with the next. Three times it hap- 
pened. Then — then — at last, when I knew 
that on the next occasion I should have no 
breath left in my body, I was flung still further 
on land than I had been before, and this time 
I determined I would not be dragged back 
alive. So I dug my feet and hands into the 
soft sand, I wrestled with those waves, and 
I beat them. They receded, leaving me 
spread-eagled on the shingle, free of them for 
a moment, and ere they could return and 
catch me again I had scrambled out of their 
reach.” 

“ Was that here? On this spot where we 
are now? ” 

“ No. It was farther that way, between 
a mile and two miles farther; ” and as Gilbert 
Bampfyld spoke he pointed with his stick in 
the direction where Bella Waldron and Ste- 
phen Charke had taken up their quarters since 
they got ashore. Therefore her lover had 
been close to them once, and they had never 
known it! 

“ I stayed there one night,” Gilbert went 
on; “then feeling sure there were islands to 


292 


THE SEAFARERS. 


the north — as there must be, you know — I 
came this way, only I slipped on the beach 
and I think sprained my ankle, so that I 
could get no farther. ,, 

“ God has been very good to you/' 
Stephen said, “ and to her. Now I will go 
and bring her here. It will not take long. 
Soon — very soon now — you will be together, 
will be happy. In a couple of hours she will 
be here. It would perhaps be in less time 
than that only, you observe, the sea is ris- 
ing and the surf is getting very high. We 
must come inland, above, by the cliffs. Fare- 
well till then.” 

“ Farewell. Heaven bless you! Ah, Mr. 
Charke, if you could only know my gratitude 
to you for saving her, and know what happi- 
ness you have brought into my life again. If 
you could only know that! ” 

* But Charke was on his way back to where 
he had left Bella almost before Gilbert had 
concluded his sentence, and beyond a back- 
ward wave of his hand had made no acknowl- 
edgment of his words. 

He climbed up to the summit of the cliffs 
easily enough, for now all his strength had 


SAVED ! 


293 


come back to him and he felt as vigorous as 
he had ever done in his life; yet when he 
gained the top he noticed that there was still 
something wanting, some of the spring and 
elasticity which had characterized the manner 
in which he returned to Bella yesterday from 
the other side of the island. Why was this? 
he asked himself. Why? And he could find 
no answer to the question. 

Yet perhaps his musings on what he had 
heard half an hour before were sufficient to 
have driven all the life, all the hope, out of 
him — his musings on the change that this 
last half hour had brought in his future. 
Heavens! his future. 

“ He was there close to us/’ he reflected, 
“ and we neither of us knew, dreamt of it. I 
could have sworn it was impossible he should 
be saved; she — well! — she did not dare to 
hope. For two days! For two days he has 
been close to us, and — and — in those two 
days what have I not pictured to myself, what 
dreams have I not had! What a fool’s para- 
dise I have been imagining for myself! Now 
there is nothing before me. Nothing, now 
« — or ever! ” 


294 


THE SEAFARERS. 


But still he forced himself to stride on, 
passing sometimes beneath the cocoa trees 
that grew on the little upland, sometimes 
through open glades in which the morning 
sun beat down upon his head with a fierceness 
only inferior to the strength it would assume 
an hour or so later, yet he heeded none of 
these things. He felt that he must reach 
Bella as soon as possible — tell her everything. 
There was no more joy left in existence for 
him, but he was the bearer of news that would 
give her joy extreme and — he loved her! Be- 
cause he did so he would not keep that news 
from her one moment longer than was neces- 
sary. 

“ Yet,” he whispered to himself while 
thinking thus, “ she would have come to love 
me in his place some day; she would — she 
must. I divined it, saw it. Now it will 
never be. Never! It is a long word.” 

Then he braced himself up still more and 
went on until he stood upon the summit of 
the little elevation which rose behind the 
spot that they had made their resting- 
place. 

Perhaps she had seen his coming, perhaps 


SAVED ! 


295 


she had had some divination of his approach, 
since he perceived that she was coming to- 
ward him, was mounting the ascent to meet 
him, her head protected by the cap of the 
drowned sailor, while over it she held with 
one hand a great palm leaf to protect her from 
the sun. Then, as they approached each 
other, she gave a gasp, it was almost a shriek, 
and cried out: 

“ Mr. Charke! Mr. Charke! What is 
the matter? What has happened? You 
are ghastly pale beneath your bronze. 
And — and — your face is changed. What 
is it?” 

“ I come,” he said, and now she gave an- 
other gasp, for his voice was changed, too, 
“ as the bearer of good — of great tidings. 
Of — ” and here he paused. Even as he 
spoke she, too, had turned white. Then rais- 
ing both her hands to her breast, she stood 
panting before him. 

“ He is saved,” she said, “ he is saved! 
Gilbert is saved. Is that it? Are those the 
tidings? ” 

“ Yes,” he answered, “ yes. He is saved! ” 

For a moment she stood before him, her 


THE SEAFARERS. 


296 

hands raised to her bosom, when suddenly 
she swayed forward and would have fallen but 
that he caught her in his arms and an instant 
later had laid her on the soft grass, while he 
ran down to the rivulet to fetch some water 
to revive her. 

That happened shortly after he returned, 
when he had bathed her forehead and moist- 
ened her lips with the water, and then she sat 
up, saying: “Come, let us go to him! At 
once! We must go at once. Yet — why not 
come to me? ” 

“ He has hurt his foot. But it is nothing; 
only a sprain. If you are recovered from 
your swoon let us set out; it is not far. We 
shall be there soon.” Whereupon he gave her 
his hand and assisted her to rise, repeating 
that it was best to set out at once. And now 
they did so, he offering his arm to assist her 
up the slope, while he explained that, owing 
to the increased roughness of the sea, it was 
impossible to proceed to the beach where her 
lover was. Also he began the account of 
how he had found Gilbert, and went through 
with it almost uninterruptedly, she listening 
without scarcely saying a word beyond now 


SAVED ! 


297 


and again exclaiming, “ Poor Gilbert !” or 
“Thank God!” Indeed, her silence during 
his narrative was such that more than once 
he glanced down at her, wondering at what 
seemed listlessness on her part. 

Yet he would have wronged her deeply 
had he really believed her listless. Also, Bella 
Waldron would have been no true, honest 
English girl had she by this time become in- 
different to the news that her betrothed was 
saved; for in her heart she was thanking God 
again and again, and far more often than she 
was giving outward utterance to those thanks 
for having saved her lover and preserved him 
to her — only! Only what? 

Only that she knew now, with their re- 
stored happiness, there had come to this other 
man — to him to whom she owed her life, and 
with it the possibility of being once more 
united to Gilbert — a broken heart, the de- 
struction of every hope of future joy that he 
had cherished. She could see it in his face, 
hear it in his voice, discern it even by the 
manner in which he walked by her side. That 
which she knew he hoped for could never have 
been, she told herself. Never, never, never! 


298 


THE SEAFARERS. 


Had Gilbert died, still it would never have 
been; no one could ever have taken his 
place. * 

But! — she was a woman with a woman’s 
heart in her breast, and her pity was woman- 
ly — sublime. 


CHAPTER XXVI. 


“ I LOVE YOU NOW.” 

“ Here is my journey’s end, here is my butt 
And very sea-mark of my utmost sail.” 

They had progressed so far toward the 
cliffs above the little bay or cove where Gil- 
bert was that now they had but to cross the 
summit of one more spur and then they would 
be able to descend to him. 

“ You will see him soon now,” Charke said 
to the girl — “ very soon. Then you will be 
happy. To-night he and I will arrange the 
signals that may bring some succour to us. 
At any rate, it cannot be long in coming. If 
we are where I think, hundreds of ships pass 
here annually; and at the worst one may live 
here very well for some time.” 

She heard his words, she missed no tone 
nor inflection of his voice, but she could not 
answer him. It was impossible. For, 

though he spoke on subjects which were ap- 
20 299 


3oo 


THE SEAFARERS. 


propriate enough to their surroundings, she 
knew that his speech, instead of conveying 
his thoughts, was only used to hide them, and 
that beneath what he said lay a sadness too 
deep for utterance; therefore she made no 
attempt at reply, contenting herself by letting 
her eyes rest on his face now and again, and 
then withdrawing them directly afterward. 

Suddenly, however, and after having cast 
a glance backward across the little plateau 
which they had passed along, he exclaimed: 

“Why! Lieutenant Bampfyld will find 
another companion of his in the poor old Em- 
peror here to greet him. See! there comes 
Bengalee behind us. How has he broken 
away from the cable? It was stout enough 
to hold a small frigate; ” and as she turned to 
look in the direction he had indicated she saw 
the tiger cub coming after them along the 
plateau at a considerable pace; coming swift- 
ly, too, and always with the lithe and hate- 
ful sinuousness which marks the progress of 
the race. 

Then, as she, too, turned and saw its 
striped body winding in and out beneath the 
tamarind and palm trees, she remembered 


‘I LOVE YOU— NOW.’ 


301 


that she had observed it gnawing at the cable 
ere she set out, and told ‘Stephen so. Also 
she said that it had seemed much excited at 
being left behind, and had made consider- 
able struggles to break away when she moved 
off from it. 

“ It will perhaps be appeased,” he an- 
swered, “ when it finds itself once more with 
you. Poor wretch! its hunger must be 
frightful. Yet — yet — how else to kill it? 
And killed it must be! ” 

“ I wish,” she said again, as she had so 
often said before, “ that I had never asked to 
have it saved. It would have been better to 
have let it die in the sea.” 

“ Perhaps,” he answered, “ perhaps. We 
can, however, leave it here when we get taken 
off, and then it must take its chance.” 

They were now upon the last ridge of the 
spur beneath which he had left Gilbert, and 
he told her that in another moment she 
would see him by looking down. “ Indeed,” 
he said, “ if you glance over now, you can see 
him, I imagine.” 

Then he bade her hold his hand and lean 
over the lip of the little precipice and follow 


302 


THE SEAFARERS. 


the run of the hill seaward. Following his 
instructions, she did so, when suddenly be- 
low they heard a rattling, a sliding, as of a 
mass of earth and stones slipping, and he felt 
a slight withdrawal, a sinking of the ground 
beneath their feet; felt it and understood its 
significance in an instant, he recalling the 
masses of fallen chalk and earth which he had 
observed lying at the foot of this and other 
cliffs earlier in the day. 

“Back!” he cried, “back!” while as he 
did so he seized Bella with his other hand as 
well as the one she already held, and sprang 
away from the ridge, the violence of his action 
causing her to fall to her knees. Yet still 
knowing her danger — their danger — he 
dragged her back and saved her, though 
not a moment too soon — not an instant! — 
since, as he clutched at her the earth for a 
foot or so in front of them — the very portion 
of it on which they had been standing — the 
very portion, indeed, across which he had but 
now drawn her — gave way. Gave way — 
broke off in a long line and fell with a crash 
to the depths below, leaving the spot over 
which he had drawn her an abyss. 


I LOVE YOU— NOW.’ 


“ My God! ” she gasped, “ you have saved 
my life again. Again — ah!” 

That last exclamation was in truth a 
shriek of dismay, of awful agony, of terror ex- 
treme. For she, whose face was toward the 
way they had come, as his back was toward it, 
saw that which he had no knowledge of; that 
which paralyzed her, struck her an instant 
after dumb with horror. 

She saw the tiger cub close behind him 
crouching for a spring, she saw its devilish, 
evil eyes gleaming like topazes, and she saw 
its body hurled with tremendous force toward 
Charke as he stood looking down on her. 

Full at him it sprang, its savage jaws open, 
its forelegs extended; and it partly missed 
him, passing on his left side, yet not doing 
so altogether. Instead, it struck his left 
shoulder, spinning him round like a drunken, 
reeling man, causing him to stagger back to- 
ward the chasm, to — to — with a gasp — fall 
over it and disappear. 

And Bella, left alone in that awful mo- 
ment — for the tiger’s leap had carried it far 
over the cliff and to its own destruction — 
saw a man beneath — her lover — shouting 


THE SEAFARERS. 


304 

and gesticulating — and then she knew no 
more. 


An hour later Stephen Charke lay on his 
back below the cliff, his eyes upturned to the 
sun, which was by now peeping over the hill 
and illuminating all the little valley with its 
rays — lay there breathing his last, his back 
broken — and by his side knelt Bella Wal- 
dron, while Gilbert Bampfyld stood near, their 
faces the true index of their sorrow. 

“ No,” Stephen whispered hoarsely now, 
in answer to a question from her. “No, I feel 
no pain; nothing but the numbness of my 
back and lower limbs. Nay, nay, do not 
weep.” Then he lowered the poor feeble 
voice a little more and whispered calmly to 
her: “ I am content, well content. And — 
it — it is better so. There was no life, no fu- 
ture for me.” 

“Oh!” she said, wringing her hands, 
while the tears streamed from her eyes and 
dropped upon his upturned face. “ Oh 
that you should have died in saving me! 
That you whom I honour so should die at 
all — young, strong as you are — and through 


*1 LOVE YOU— NOW.’ 


305 


the outcome of my wilfulness of letting that 
creature be saved. Saved to slay you! Oh, 
God! it is too hard.” 

“ It thought,” he said, after a pause, dur- 
ing which she wiped the drops from his fore- 
head and moistened his lips, “ that I was at- 
tacking you. Doubtless it did that. It 
hated me and loved you ” — then he added to 
himself — “ as all do.” 

“ Gilbert! ” she shrieked now to her lover, 
“ Gilbert, can nothing be done? Nothing to 
save him? Ah! perhaps his back is not 
broken — it may be but a terrible fall — he may 
recover yet. Can we do nothing? ” 

But it was Stephen who answered, “ Noth- 
ing.” 

“ Old chap,” said Gilbert, close by him 
also now, and kneeling down to take his hand, 
“ is — is — there anything you want done, any 
message sent to any one at home? Only say 
the word. You know you can depend on 
me.” 

“ If it can be,” the dying man said, and 
now his voice was very low, almost inaudible, 
“ if you can have it done later — when you are 
found — bury me — at — the — spot where she 


THE SEAFARERS. 


306 

and I — came ashore. There, in the little — 
knoll. You know,” and his eyes sought hers. 
“ That is where I want — to lie — until we meet 
again.” 

They could not answer him, their voices 
were no longer their own, hardly could they 
see through their tears, but still they were 
able to tell him by their gestures that it should 
be as he desired. Then Gilbert managed to 
rise to his feet and whispered in Bella’s ear: 

“ He is going — now. The end is close at 
hand. Say — say 4 good-bye ’ to him — and 
— and kiss him. He deserves it from you — 
and — I shall not grudge it.” 

And in his manliness he turned away from 
them. 

Perhaps the dying man guessed what had 
been said; perhaps, because he knew his hour 
had come, he opened his eyes for the last time 
and gazed wistfully at her. 

“ Good-bye,” he said. “ Farewell.” 

“Good-bye. Ah, God! that I should 
have to say it to you. Good-bye. Good- 
bye, Stephen;” and she stooped down and 
kissed the cold white lips of the man who had 
loved her so. Also, she put her arm beneath 


X LOVE YOU— NOW.’ 


307 


his neck and let his head lie on it, while amidst 
the tempest of her sobs she heard him mur- 
mur feebly: 

“ I loved you — from — the first — moment. 
I love — you — now.” 

Then his head turned over on her arm and 
lay there motionless. 


The wedding was over, Gilbert Bampfyld 
and Bella Waldron were man and wife, the 
marriage having taken place at Cape Town; 
the only difference between the ceremony and 
that which was originally intended being that 
the Bishop of Cape Town joined their hands 
instead of his brother of Bombay doing so. 
And so at last these two loving hearts were 
made happy, and in spite of all that had 
threatened both Bella and her lover during 
the past few months the future now looked 
bright and cheerful. 

Not three days had elapsed since Stephen 
Charke’s death when Gilbert, who with Bella 
sat from sundown to sunset beneath a clump 
of cocoa trees on the highest point to which 
they could attain (he being soon able to reach 
it quite easily by the aid of his cudgel and the 


308 


THE SEAFARERS. 


rapid improvement in the sprain he had suf- 
fered from), when they saw a vessel not two 
miles away from the island. 

“ And I swear,” he exclaimed, “ one of her 
Majesty’s cruisers! Look at those yellow 
funnels, one aft of the other. That’s a 
cruiser right enough. I wonder if it’s the old 
Briseus! ” 

Then he fell to making every kind of sig- 
nal which he could devise when unprovided 
with the means of attracting her attention 
either by pistol-shot or fire, and in about half 
an hour they had the joy of seeing one of her 
cutters manned and lowered, and a moment 
later making for the shore. 

The cruiser turned out to be the Clytie on 
her way home from Calcutta to Plymouth, 
and even as the cutter fetched the shore the 
coxswain recognised Gilbert as an officer 
whom he had previously served with. Then 
he furnished him with the intelligence that he 
was reported dead. 

“ Not yet,” said Gilbert, “ though since I 
left the Briseus in charge of her whaler I have 
had two narrow escapes. Unfortunately, 
others with whom I have been in company 


I LOVE YOU— NOW.’ 


309 


are so.” Then briefly he told the man all 
that had happened to him, and stated that he 
was going to ask the captain of the Clytie for 
a passage for himself and his future wife, the 
young lady by his side. 

First, however, there was one thing to be 
done, namely, to bury Stephen Charke in the 
place where he had desired, a thing which 
would be very easy of accomplishment, since 
the sea was perfectly calm again, and the body 
could easily be carried from the spot where 
he had fallen to that where he desired to be 
buried. But, to begin with, the permission of 
the captain had to be obtained, which was 
done by signalling, and then the rest was easy. 
Some more men were sent off in the second 
cutter with the chaplain and some spades for 
digging a grave, after which the sailors 
marched under Gilbert’s command to where 
he and Bella had covered up Stephen Charke’s 
remains with palm and other leaves that were 
within their reach, and then removed them. 
And very reverently was the interment per- 
formed, all standing round the spot with the 
exception of Bella, who was so overcome that 
she had to be led away from the grave. 


3io 


THE SEAFARERS. 


And so they laid him in it, and there on 
the little solitary island they left him to his 
long sleep. 

Perhaps nothing so much as his death — 
not even his heroism in the stricken ship nor 
his masterful strength in fighting the storm 
and the waves, and succeeding at the risk of 
his own life in saving that of the woman 
whom he so tenderly loved — kept his memory 
green in both their hearts. Perhaps, too, that 
last sacrifice which he made — his life — at the 
moment when once more he was preserving 
hers, furnishes the reason which again and 
again prompts Gilbert to say to his wife, in 
a voice tinged always with a tone of regret 
for the brave sailor who lies so far away: 

“ After all, Bella, I am not sure that you 
chose the right one. Poor Stephen Charke 
was the better man of the two.” 

Only, when he observes the glance she 
gives him in return, he is comforted by know- 
ing that in no circumstances could that other 
have ever won her heart as he has done. 


THE END. 


By ELLEN THORNEYCROFT FOWLER* 


JUST PUBLISHED. 

The Farringdons. 

A Novel. f2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

The scene of “The Farringdons” is laid in large part in the “Black 
Country” of England where live the Farringdons, “a hardy race whose 
time was taken up in the making of iron and the saving of souls.” A 
daughter of this house who develops the artistic temperament plays the 
leading part in the story. From her environments, in which the quaint 
characters of rustics and workingmen hold a large place, she passes for a 
time to very different scenes in London. The book is distinguished by the 
close observation, the humor, and the interest in religious and social ques- 
tions which have helped to gain for Miss Fowler her high place in contempo- 
rary fiction. Her abundant sympathy with humanity, her understanding of 
the religious beliefs expressed by her characters, and her skill in imparting life 
and movement to all the figures of a story dealing with the Methodism of 
the Black Country, and also with the social life of London, render this pic- 
ture of life the broadest and strongest work which she has given us. 

NEW EDITION. 

Concerning Isabel Carnaby. 

A Novel. With Portrait and Biographical Sketch. i2mo. Cloth, 
$1.50. 

“ No one who reads it will regret it or forget it.” — Chicago Tribune. 

“ For brilliant conversations, epigrammatic bits of philosophy, keenness 
of wit, and full insight into human nature, ‘ Concerning Isabel Carnaby ’ is 
a remarkable success.” — Boston Transcript. 

“An excellent novel, clever and witty enough to be very amusing, and 
serious enough to provide much food for thought.” — London Daily Tele- 
graph. 

A Double Thread. 

A Novel. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

“ The excellence of her writing makes ... her book delightful reading. 
She is genial and sympathetic without being futile, and witty without being 
cynical.” — Literature , London , Lng. 

“ Will attract a host of readers. . . . The great charm about Miss Fow- 
ler’s writing is its combination of brilliancy and kindness. . . . Miss Fow- 
ler has all the arts. She disposes of her materials in a perfectly workmanlike 
manner. Her tale is well proportioned, everything is in its place, and the 
result is thoroughly pleasing.”— Claudius Clear , in the British Weekly. 


D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 


“A FRESH AND CHARMING NOVEL” 


The Last Lady of Mulberry. 

A Story of Italian New York. By Henry Wil- 
ton Thomas. Illustrated by Emil Poliak, iamo. 
Cloth, #1.50. 

“The Last Lady of Mulberry ** is the title of a fresh and 
charming novel, whose author, a new writer, Mr. Henry Wilton 
Thomas, has found an unexploited field in the Italian quarter of 
New York. Mr. Thomas is familiar with Italy as well as New 
York, and the local color of his vivacious pictures gives his story 
a peculiar zest. As a story pure and simple his novel is distin- 
guished by originality in motive, by a succession of striking and 
dramatic scenes, and by an understanding of the motives of the 
characters, and a justness and sympathy in their presentation 
which imparts a constant glow of human interest to the tale. 
The author has a quaint and delightful humor which will be rel- 
ished by every reader. While his story deals with actualities, it 
is neither depressing nor unpleasantly realistic, like many ‘‘sto- 
ries of low life,” and the reader gains a vivid impression of the 
sunnier aspects of life in the Italian quarter. The book contains 
a series of well-studied and effective illustrations by Mr. Emil 
Poliak. 

Br THE AUTHOR OF “RED POTTAGE.'* 

Diana Tempest. 

A Novel. By Mary Cholmondeley, author of 
“ Red Pottage/' “ The Danvers Jewels/' etc. 
With Portrait and Sketch of the Author. 1 2mo. 
Cloth, $1.50. 

“Of Miss Cholmondeley*s clever novels, ‘Diana Tempest* 
is quite the cleverest .” — London Times. 

“ The novel is hard to lay by, and one likes to take it up 
again for a second reading .* * — Boston Literary World. 


D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 


BOOKS BY ALLEN RAINE. 


Each, J2mo, cloth, $1.00? paper, 50 cents. 


Garthowen : A Welsh Idyl. 

“ Wales has long waited for her novelist, but he seems to have come at 
last in the person of Mr. Allen Raine, who has at once proved himself a worthy 
interpreter and exponent of the romantic spirit of his country.” — London Daily 
Mail. 

By Berwen Banks. 

“Mr. Raine enters into the lives and traditions of the people, and herein 
lies the charm of his stories.” — Chicago Tribune. 

“ Interesting from the beginning, and grows more so as it proceeds.” — 
San Francisco Bulletin. 

“ It has the same grace of style, strength of description, and dainty sweet- 
ness of its predecessors.” — Boston Saturday Evening Gazette. 


Torn Sails. 

“ It is a little idyl of humble life and enduring love, laid bare before us, 
very real and pure, which in its telling shows us some strong points of Welsh 
character — the pride, the hasty temper, the quick dying out of wrath. ... We 
call this a well-written story, interesting alike through its romance and its 
glimpses into another life than ours.” — Detroit Free Press. 

“Allen Raine’s work is in the right direction and worthy of all honor.” 
— Boston Budget. 

Mifanwy: A Welsh Singer. 

“ Simple in all its situations, the story is worked up in that touching and 
quaint strain which never grows wearisome no matter how often the lights and 
shadows of love are introduced. It rings true, and does not tax the imagi- 
nation.” — Boston Herald. 

“One of the most charming tales that has come to us of late.” — Brooklyn 
Eagle. 


D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 


FRANK M. CHAPMAN'S BOOKS* 


Bird Studies with a Camera. 

With Introductory Chapters on the Outfit and Methods of the 
Bird Photographer. By Frank M. Chapman, Assistant Curator 
of Vertebrate Zoology in the American Museum of Natural 
History ; Author of “ Handbook of Birds of Eastern North 
America ,, and (< Bird- Life.’ * Illustrated with over ioo Photo- 
graphs from Nature by the Author. I 2mo. Cloth, #1.75. 

Bird students and photographers will find that this book possesses for them a unique 
interest and value. It contains fascinating accounts of the habits of some of our com- 
mon birds and descriptions of the largest bird colonies existing in eastern North Amer- 
ica; while its author’s phenomenal success in photographing birds in Nature not only 
lends to the illustrations the charm of realism, but makes the book a record of surpris- 
ing achievements with the camera Several of these illustrations have been described 
by experts as “ the most remarkable photographs of wild life we have ever seen.’’ The 
book is practical as well as descriptive, and in the opening chapters the questions of 
camera, lens, plates, blinds, decoys, and other pertinent matters are fully discussed. 

Bird-Life. 

A Guide to the Study of our Common Birds. With 75 full-page 
uncolored plates and 25 drawings in the text, by Ernest Seton 
Thompson. Library Edition. 1 2mo. Cloth, #1.75. 

The Same, with lithographic plates in colors. 8vo. Cloth, $5.00. 

TEACHERS’ EDITION. Same as Library Edition, but con- 
taining an Appendix with new matter designed for the use of 
teachers, and including lists of birds for each month of the year. 
i2mo. Cloth, $2.00. 

TEACHERS’ MANUAL. To accompany Portfolios of Colored 
Plates of Bird-Life. Contains the same text as the Teachers’ 
Edition of “ Bird-Life, ” but is without the 75 uncolored plates. 
Sold only with the Portfolios, as follows : 

Portfolio No. I. — Permanent Residents and Winter Visitants. 32 
plates. 

Portfolio No. II. — March and April Migrants. 34 plates. 

Portfolio No. III. — May Migrants, Types of Birds’ Eggs, Types of 
Birds’ Nests from Photographs from Nature. 34 plates. 

Price of Portfolios, each, $1.25 ; with Manual, $2.00. The 
three Portfolios with Manual, $4.00. 

Handbook of Birds of Eastern North America. 

With nearly 200 Illustrations. 1 2mo. Library Edition, cloth, 
$3.00 ; Pocket Edition, flexible morocco, $3.50. 


D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 





























































































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